Articles

News articles and white papers about GO-BGC programs, expeditions, and floats. 

Expanding Fleet of Autonomous Floating Robots Targets Deeper Understanding of Global Ocean Dynamics

Palmer, C. (2023). Expanding Fleet of Autonomous Floating Robots Targets Deeper Understanding of Global Ocean Dynamics. 

March 2023, Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2023.01.001

What’s climate change really doing to the ocean? Ask the robots

Bif, M.B. (2022). What’s climate change really doing to the ocean? Ask the robots.  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

McDougle Middle Students Celebrate “Cheerwine”

The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is regarded by scientists as a large and crucial absorber of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. New findings from autonomous floats deployed in the Southern Ocean, however, provide the first comprehensive data to suggest that, in winter, the open water nearest the sea ice surrounding Antarctica releases significantly more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than previously thought.

December 2020, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools

Fleet of robotic probes will monitor global warming’s impact on microscopic ocean life

A single drop of seawater holds millions of phytoplankton, a mix of algae, bacteria, and protocellular creatures. Across the world’s oceans these photosynthesizing microbes pump out more than half of the planet’s oxygen, while slowing climate change by capturing an estimated 25% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released from humanity’s burning of fossil fuels. But the scale of this vital chemistry is mostly a guess, and there’s little sense of how it will change as temperatures rise. “What’s happening out there? We have no idea really,” says Susan Wijffels, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

October 29, 2020, Science Magazine

Brrrr! ‘Supercooled’ waters make nearby Antarctic seas seem balmy

Data collected from research ships, autonomous floats and sensor-wearing Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) help to show that tongues of ultra-frigid seawater are relatively common in the Southern Ocean.

*This article is only available to Nature subscribers

October 21, 2020, Nature Research Highlights. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02956-4

Diving robots find that Antarctic seas release surprising amounts of carbon dioxide in winter

The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is regarded by scientists as a large and crucial absorber of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. New findings from autonomous floats deployed in the Southern Ocean, however, provide the first comprehensive data to suggest that, in winter, the open water nearest the sea ice surrounding Antarctica releases significantly more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than previously thought.

August 14, 2018, Princeton University News