Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
BY CHRISTINA REED
The Scarlet Knight surfaced in Spanish waters last week and is on schedule, despite difficult currents, to reach its rendezvous site off the coast of Baiona, where celebrations are planned for Dec. 9.
The robotic underwater glider has traveled more than 4,000 nautical miles from New Jersey to Spain under the guidance of students and faculty from Rutgers's Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and with help from other students at partner universities in Europe.
"In just ten years the first generation of Argo autonomous floats which profile the ocean's structure while simply drifting with the currents has transformed our ability to observe and understand ocean currents and heat distribution. The successful transiting of the ocean by the Scarlet Knight launches the next generation of controlled remote observations," says Tom Gross, IOC Programme Specialist for the Global Ocean Observing System.
"Just 12 years after Lindbergh's famous flight across the Atlantic, commercial flights made the trip routine. Over the next ten years we expect the glider technology to become a large part of the future GOOS."Profiles of the water column made using instruments such as these provide oceanographers a 3-diminsional view of the ocean's interior.
"The opportunity to participate in this project was a true scientific adventure that allowed us to learn new interpretations of our satellite products," says Alex Redondo Arolas, a marine sciences doctoral student at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria who is specializing in processing satellite data and the use of remote sensing to study the environment.
Now that the glider is in Spanish waters, Redondo Arolas maintains the daily conversion of five geophysical variables into transferable images for Rutgers to interpret: sea surface temperature, chlorophyll, thermal fronts, the anomaly of the sea surface height, and the direction of the surface currents.
The glider team has overcome several hazards along the way, including biofouling from gooseneck barnacles that threatened to commandeer the vehicle and required a mid-Atlantic at-sea cleaning mission.
Click on the thumbnails for larger images.
Throughout the crossing the glider has been providing lessons on the complexity of ocean dynamics and breaking new ground for ocean observations. Last year's glider was lost at sea shortly before reaching the Azores, having set a world record for distance at 3,078 nautical miles (5,700 km).
The team has navigated through warm and cold-core eddies sometimes flying the Scarlet Knight perpendicular to the current to escape. At one point the glider was sandwiched between two eddies and they had to delicately maneuver so as not to get trapped in either one. They have also dealt with cloud cover obscuring their satellite maps and making it difficult to plan the best course through shifting currents.
When charting the navigation based on observations is impossible, the team relies on models to help guide them. Such has been the case recently as the glider struggles to reach a destination where she can be safely retrieved. Ocean swells off the Spanish coast can reach 30 meters high in the winter and the best option is to bring her in to a safe harbor.
"The remarkable success of the Scarlet Knight mission has demonstrated the effectiveness of gliders as unique platforms for making large scale, long term observations in the world's oceans.''- Dr. Richard W. Spinrad, NOAA Assistant Administrator for Research
"For the last 4 days, Scarlet has been experiencing strong currents to the west and southwest, greatly slowing our progress," reported marine scientist Scott Glenn on 21 Nov. "We have been steering her generally to the north, zig-zagging with the currents, fighting for every kilometer in the east direction while trying not to loose ground to the currents pushing us south. We have only traveled 29 kilometers over the last 4 days fighting these currents."
Glenn is co-director, with Oscar Schofield, of the Coastal Ocean Observation Laboratory. Tuesday Glenn reported that the last course change over the weekend turned Scarlet towards shore in Baiona and Vigo.
"The remarkable success of the Scarlet Knight mission has demonstrated the effectiveness of gliders as unique platforms for making large scale, long term observations in the world's oceans. Clearly the ability to improve our understanding of the dynamic nature of the seas depends on having new and effective tools, such as gliders," says Dr. Richard W. Spinrad, NOAA Assistant Administrator for Research.
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean is just the beginning, says Alex Redondo Arolas.
"A new round of sampling gear is taking its first steps. The new gliders in development now will have more comprehensive knowledge of the ocean environment, more power, more sensors to sample more biogeochemical variables, and more autonomy."
As Argo Technical Coordinator Mathieu Belbeoch explains, "We are about to enter in a new era of oceanography with the glider technology completing the Global Ocean Observation System. It is planned to continuously occupy 20 key sections of the ocean and steer the gliders in regions where profiling floats or ships do not go.
"The coming decade will see the development of multidisciplinary observing platforms, such as gliders and a new generation of floats), using bio-optical and bio-geochemical sensors to expand and optimize GOOS. The GOOS Project Office, and in particular its Support Centre for Observing programmes (JCOMMOPS), will assist the glider community in the implementation of its network of observatories."
What began as a mission to help students gain understanding of marine science has clearly succeeded and in the process has helped evolve ocean observations to a new level. There will me be much to celebrate on Dec. 9.
Christina Reed is a freelance science journalist based in Paris, France. Reprinted with permission.
