The Greenwich Meridian

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Located at the intersection of the Greenwich Meridian and the Equator, this marking has a serious scientific purpose. Known as station 13010-Soul, it is one of the numerous buoys that make up the “Prediction and Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic” (PIRATA).

PIRATA was developed by Brazil, France and the USA to study ocean-atmosphere interactions in the tropical Atlantic. Implementation of the PIRATA programme commenced in 1997 and it is presumed that the original buoy at this location dates from that time. The buoy is of a type known as an Atlas Buoy. It measures wind direction and speed, air temperature and humidity, rainfall and solar radiation together with oceanic properties between the surface and 500 m depth. All the PIRATA stations are located at degree confluences (the points where the integer degrees of latitude intersect with integer degrees of longitude), but station 13010-Soul is the only one on the Greenwich Meridian.

There is a five nautical mile exclusion zone around the buoy, so it is only possible for passengers on passing boats to view it from a distance.