A data buoy for weather and sea observations deployed by Taiwanese researchers was vandalized by unknown individuals, with the estimated losses of Taiwanese and US instruments reaching millions of New Taiwan dollars, National Taiwan University’s Institute of Oceanography said yesterday.
A team at the institute in 2015 started deploying two buoys (named NTU1 and NTU2) in waters 375km and 175km off the coast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) for collecting in-situ data of air and sea conditions to improve typhoon forecasts, institute associate professor Yang Yiing-jang (楊穎堅) said.
The buoys have resisted 14 typhoons, thanks to their solid anchoring 5.5km below the surface, he said.
Photo courtesy of National Taiwan University’s Institute of Oceanography
However, the team last month found the NTU1 buoy had unexpectedly drifted away from its position, and they immediately convened members to board Ocean Researcher I to look for it, he said.
They first retrieved the buoy’s surface floating base and meteorological tower in waters near the contiguous zone of the Philippines, while the buoy was found cut off from the 6m part of its underwater cable, he said.
The cut was neat and likely to have been done by some mechanical cutter, instead of being pulled off by force, he added.
In a second mission, the team on Wednesday reached the buoy’s original position and used an acoustic transponder to locate its underwater instruments, but nothing more was recovered, Yang said.
They had to suspend the mission due to high seas caused by the approaching Typhoon Hagibis, he added.
Attached to the NTU1 buoy’s underwater cable are instruments belonging to the institute, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) and their collaborators at Oregon State University, Yang said, estimating the financial losses amount to millions of NT dollars.
They are more concerned about losing valuable data, as US turbulence probes had collected unprecedented data near the centers of the eyes of several typhoons, but they were set at a self-recording mode, instead of a real-time transmitting mode, he said.
Despite the setbacks, the team would seek to recover the underwater instruments again, possibly with the help of high-resolution sonar systems, he said.
While it is the first time the team encountered such a mishap, similar incidents have been reported in different corners of the world, while buoys deployed remotely from populated land areas are less likely to be wrecked, he said, adding that their NTU2 buoy remains intact.
They still do not know the real perpetrator, but continue working with the government to communicate with local seafarers and fishers, he said.
Such vandalism can be said to harm others without benefiting oneself, as perpetrators might endanger their own safety, institute director Jan Sen (詹森) said.
However, it is part of the risks that oceanographers have to face, Jan said, adding that the institute continues supporting such altruistic monitoring missions of typhoons using the buoys.
Yang, Jan and CWB officials next week are to visit the National Data Buoy Center and the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, hoping to gather more advice for preventing buoy vandalism, they said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS