The Southern Ocean is key to Earth’s climate, but the same gusting winds, big waves and strong currents that are important to ocean physics make it perilous for oceanographers.
The Southern Ocean is key to Earth’s climate, but the same gusting winds, big waves and strong currents that are important to ocean physics make it perilous for oceanographers.
Instead their job is increasingly being given to ocean drones, the autonomous floating vehicles that collect data from the world’s oceans. With an urgent need to better understand climate to predict how it will shift with more heat-trapping gases, scientists are developing new tools to measure waters below where satellites can penetrate, and in places that are too dangerous or expensive to reach regularly by research ship. They are also sending those instruments on increasingly ambitious missions.
Many of these new tools look like robotic fish, but the University of Washington sent a robotic surf board to ride the waves collecting data from Antarctica to South America. The Wave Glider, a long-duration ocean robot designed to operate in stormy conditions and high latitudes, can stay at sea for months patrolling for illegal fishing, listening for seismic events, collecting weather or ocean data and monitoring the environment. Last December, UW researchers sent it out on a first-ever attempt to cross the terrifically turbulent waters of Drake Passage.
Read more at University of Washington
Image: The Wave Glider near Antarctica’s Palmer Station in December (that’s summer for this region) before starting its epic voyage on the Southern Ocean.
Credit: Avery Snyder / University of Washington
