LSPA's Instrumented Lake Buoy

The buoy is located in Lake Sunapee at 43° 23' 28.37" N / 72° 3' 28.38" W near Loon Island Lighthouse from May through early November annually. During the winter months, the buoy is tethered in Sunapee Harbor and continues to collect and transmit some data. 

Instruments on LSPA’s water quality buoy (pictured above) record air and water data (weather and in-lake conditions) and sends it to LSPA's Center For Lake Studies via radio transmitter every ten minutes, round-the-clock, 365 days of the year.

The recorded data from the buoy is sent to the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), an organization that works to understand, predict and communicate the role and response of lakes in a changing global environment.

The instrumentation on the buoy records:

  • air temperature

  • wind speed & direction

  • humidity

  • sunlight energy (PAR/radiometry)

  • water temperature at surface and at every meter down to ten meters

  • dissolved oxygen in the water (at surface and at 10 meters)

  • electrical conductivity of the water

  • chlorophyll-a (used as a measure of the concentration of algae in the water)

  • phycocyanin (used to measure the presence & abundance of cyanobacteria)

  • dissolved organic matter in the water

  • underwater lake sounds (hydrophone)