Assessment of currents derived from drifting fish-aggregating-devices for ocean model currents verification

There has been a rapid rise in the use of drifting fish-aggregating-devices (FADs) in the fisheries industry with the introduction of satellite-tracked sensors. There are an estimated 100,000 FADs drift in the global ocean with nearly 40,000 in the Western Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). The FADs have been widely used by the fisheries to enhance fish stock. However, there is limited research on deriving ocean currents information from FADs. We demonstrate FADs to be a valuable observation source for global ocean forecast system verification. Our analysis shows high correlation rates between the FADs speeds and the observed currents from the global drifter program (GDP) buoys, and analysis currents from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's (ABoM) global ocean forecast system in the WCPO. The large number of FADs relative to the sparse GDP observations make them particularly useful to complement the GDP observing platform.