Scientists at the La Jolla, California-based Scripps Institution of Oceanography have recently been awarded nearly $1 million in funds for the development of swarms of oceanic observations robots. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Ocean Science, the main funder of the research, plans to have at its disposal autonomous underwater explorers (AUE), that can drift away with the currents, and provide scientists with access in otherwise-impenetrable areas. New insights in things such as marine protected areas, harmful algal blooms, and oil spills could be gained with AUE.

Scripps experts Jules Jaffe and Peter Franks are in charge of the new investigation, which now sets out to produce efficient AUE. The team is also in charge with making the sensors on the free-drifting machines sensitive enough to detect tiny variations in the factors that determine the health of plankton, the organisms that form the bottom of the oceanic food chain. Just like in physics, once the large processes have been somewhat understood, the need arises to check out what is going on at the small scale as well, experts say.

“AUEs will fill in gaps between existing marine technologies. They will provide a whole new kind of information,” Jaffe explains. Scientists hope that the new instruments will be able to detect such things as localized currents, small temperature variations, changes in salinity and pressure, as well as the biological properties of certain areas. An entire new range of ocean-based phenomena could thus be revealed to scientists. Studies may then lead to new methods of mitigating the effects of global warming, as well as to new ways of protecting endangered species in limited habitats around the world.

“We're seeing great success in the global use of ocean profiling floats to document large-scale circulation patterns and other physical and chemical attributes of the deep and open seas. These innovative AUE will allow researchers to sample the environments of coastal regions as well, and to better understand how small organisms operate in the complex surroundings of the oceans,” adds NSF Division of Ocean Sciences expert Phillip Taylor.

“AUE will give us information to figure out how small organisms survive, how they move in the ocean, and the physical dynamics they experience as they get around. AUE should improve ocean models and allow us to do a better job of following 'the weather and climate of the ocean,' as well as help us understand things like carbon fluxes,” Franks adds.