Robots To Monitor Southern Ocean And Climate

TERRADAILY

Map showing the placement of the robotic floats

Hobart - Jan 31, 2003
Australian scientists are preparing to make their largest investment yet to monitor the engine-room of global climate, the Southern Ocean's Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

In the next three years, a total of 44 robotic floats will be deployed south of Australia by scientists from the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems and CSIRO.

"With this new technology, we can for the first time observe what is happening beneath the surface of the Southern Ocean on a routine basis," says CRC Program Leader and oceanographer Dr Steve Rintoul.

"The Southern Ocean is notorious for experiencing the strongest winds and largest waves on the planet.

"Because the region is so remote and inhospitable, ships tend to avoid the area and we have very few observations there. The floats will allow us to observe changes in the Southern Ocean affecting climate and marine life."

"Together with US, European and Japanese efforts this project will monitor the Circumpolar Current and provide a benchmark against which we can measure future climate change," he said.

With a life of 3-5 years, the $30,000 instruments drift with the currents and sample the ocean to a depth of two kilometres every 10 days. Temperature and salinity profiles measured by the floats are relayed to land via satellite.

The Australian floats will be part of a flotilla of 3,000 instruments seeded throughout the world's oceans by 2006, as part of the Argo project, a US-led ocean observation initiative supported by 13 countries.

"Eighty per cent of the 750 floats deployed so far are in Northern Hemisphere ocean basins. Yet many of the most important questions regarding future climate can only be answered with observations from the southern hemisphere oceans. The Australian Argo effort is helping to fill this gap," Dr Rintoul said.

The floats will be deployed between 75�E and 165�E, from Australia to the edge of the sea ice, starting in late 2003.

Describing the project at an international oceanographic conference - the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans - in Hobart this morning, Dr Rintoul said a feature of the $2.5 million Southern Ocean Argo project will be the almost-immediate delivery of information on ocean conditions at the surface and sub-surface for use by meteorologists, climate researchers, the fishing and shipping industries, and managers of marine resources.

Dr Neville Smith, Principal Research Scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre in Melbourne, said application of the new technologies in Australia's oceans would generate many opportunities for the nation.

Dr Smith leads an international research group, the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE). GODAE is creating the infrastructure which will convert data relayed by satellite from ocean measuring instruments into forecasts of ocean behaviour, and improved climate outlooks.

Ocean observation and prediction is a 'fast-growth' area with direct socio-economic impacts.

The availability of real-time ocean measurements and predictions create obvious opportunities for related industries such as oil and gas, shipping and transport, and maritime safety.

"However, it is also in this area that we can make significant contributions to natural resource conservation, fisheries and environmental management, making these new research initiatives very timely," he said.

Development of the Southern Ocean Argo project was made possible by Federal Government support for the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystem CRC, based at the University of Tasmania. The Argo initiative will be a major contribution on Australia's part to the Climate Action Partnership with the USA, recently announced by Environment Minister David Kemp.

The Government supported the CRC with a $23.5 million grant over seven years. Partners in the CRC for Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems include the Australian Antarctic Division, University of Tasmania, CSIRO, and the Bureau of Meteorology. Australian supporting participants are the Tasmanian Department of Economic Development, the Australian National University (ANU), the Australian Greenhouse Office and Silicon Graphics.

ROBO SPACE

Robotic Carbon Explorers Test The "Iron Hypothesis" In Nature

Berkeley - Oct 25, 2002
In the spring of 2001, two robotic Carbon Explorer floats recorded the rapid growth of phytoplankton in the upper layers of the North Pacific Ocean after a passing storm had deposited iron-rich dust from the Gobi Desert. The carbon measurements, reported in the October 25 issue of Science, are the first direct observation of wind-blown terrestrial dust fertilizing the growth of aquatic plant life.

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