Making Waves

One Full Year of Ocean Data Services

To help foster new research in marine sciences, Liquid Robotics is announcing a special offer for academic and research institutions. For a period of one year, Liquid Robotics will provide ocean data services, on demand, for a total cost of USD $65,000. This exceptional value provides institutions with access to densities and volumes of surface ocean data previously unaffordable. Highlights include:

- Wave Glider equipped with Liquid Robotics’ standard set of MetOcean sensors

- Operations and maintenance training for academic institution staff

- Management, collection and delivery of the data to your institution

- Customer responsible for communications costs and launch & recovery logistics

This offer is valid for contracts received before December 28, 2012. For additional details or to sign up, contact Amy Rubsamen (408-636-4200).

Photo Credit: Dr. David Fratantoni, WHOI

Understanding Upper Ocean Salinity

Over the past 50 years, there have been dramatic changes in the oceans’ salt content. By tracking the variations in ocean salinity, researchers can better understand the global water cycle and its ties to climate change. Two satellites, SMOS and Aquarius, are being used to sense water salinity (and soil moisture, in the case of SMOS) around the world. The mission, titled SPURS (Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study), aims to measure the detailed structure of upper-ocean salinity, its temporal evolution, and its relationship to larger-scale atmospheric and oceanic forcing.

The multi-year SPURS effort will deploy an array of instruments and platforms, including autonomous gliders, sensor-laden buoys and unmanned underwater vehicles, to learn more about what drives salinity. In September 2012, scientists aboard the research vessel Knorr departed the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Mass., to embark on a voyage designed to shed new light on the link between ocean salinity and shifts in global precipitation patterns. Scientists launched three Liquid Robotics Wave Gliders to collect salinity and sea surface temperature (SST) in the mid-Atlantic ocean. Salinity is being measured at 22 cm and 660 cm and the team is finding very interesting and important differences between the two measurements, especially in the SPURS region where the ocean skin is warmed by hot tropical sunshine and made salty by vigorous evaporation.

“The deployment of the first Wave Glider went very smoothly and we have already made some exciting - and previously very difficult - measurements that have the graduate students aboard [the vessel Knorr] begging to play with the data,” said Dr. David M. Fratantoni of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Read the full story here.

SPURS Project | Expedition Blog | Autonomous Systems Lab, WHOI

Tracking Great White Sharks

Great white sharks have kept much about their lives completely secret, leaving researchers with little information about where they spend their time. A Liquid Robotics Wave Glider® marine robot named Carey is probing the Pacific Ocean off the California coast as part of the Blue Serengeti initiative led by Stanford marine sciences Professor Barbara Block and her research team. Their goal is to keep tabs on the top marine predators, and to provide better census data of all species in the area.

Block’s effort builds on the decade-long Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) project. To keep track of sharks long term, the Blue Serengeti initiative uses $400 acoustic tags, each of which produces a unique series of "pings" to identify an individual animal as it swims by moored listening buoys in three foraging hot spots – Año Nuevo, the Farallon Islands and Tomales Point.

Per Dr. Barbara Block, “The Wave Glider is an unmanned robot. It’s a data-collecting mobile platform. It can carry sensors for everything from weather to sea surface temperatures. Our goal is to use revolutionary technology that increases our capacity to observe our oceans and census populations, improve fisheries management models, and monitor animal responses to climate change."

Anyone with an iPhone or iPad can follow the sharks and the Wave Glider using Shark Net, an app developed by Dr. Block’s Blue Serengeti Initiative and available free on iTunes.

Read more here.

WHOI Micro-Modem Integration

Liquid Robotics is committed to better understanding all the processes at work in our oceans, including powerful earthquakes that are generated at sub-sea fault lines. In order to research and monitor oceanic tectonic activity, Liquid Robotics, in cooperation with Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps), began sea trials of a Wave Glider towing a WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) Micro-Modem. Mounted in an LRI-designed tow fish, this modem can communicate acoustically with a mated modem located deep down on the ocean floor. The seabed modem is linked to a Scripps seismic sensor, which constantly transmits the tremors it records. Historically, the problem with these sensors has been their inability to deliver real-time data to land, as the signal they transmit travels well through water but cannot reach a satellite to be relayed. By acting as a surface-to-air communications interface, the Wave Glider is enabling the installation of a much more comprehensive seafloor seismic measurement system.

A test package incorporating a seabed modem was deployed at depths of 130 and 1150 meters in LRI's Hawai’i test range. An extended validation of this Gateway application with Scripps seismic sensors is scheduled for late 2012 at 3000 meters depth in the waters off San Diego.

Latest update on travels of Papa Mau, Benjamin, Piccard Maru and Fontaine Maru

It's been a hectic few months for those of us on land, but our PacX Wave Gliders continue to make good progress on their record-setting journey across the Pacific Ocean to final destinations in Japan and Australia. Many of you have been asking when they will make landfall. Their arrival depends on waves and currents, which are only somewhat predictable, so please expect these estimates to change.

Australian Team

Papa Mau, our Wayfarer, is making great progress towards Australia, arriving north of Brisbane in late November. He was making exceptional time as he crossed the equator and the tropics, yet has now slowed his pace a bit. Benjamin is substantially behind Papa Mau. We are not sure why he’d be slower than Papa Mau, so we are diverting him to Samoa for a check-up. Even so, Benjamin is still making better than .75 knots through the water.

Japan Team

Piccard Maru is leading the team heading to Japan. He still has a substantial voyage ahead of him as he navigates towards the Mariana Trench. He's estimated to arrive there around March of 2013. Fontaine Maru was doing well right alongside Piccard Maru, but about a month ago we lost communications with Fontaine’s primary computer and we are only tracking his backup transponder. We're unsure of what happened, and he is in an extremely remote position, outside of shipping lanes. Still, as long as the backup transponder works, we have hopes for a rendezvous, recovery and an answer to the mystery.

PacX Challenge

We would like to thank all those who submitted abstracts for the PacX Challenge. We received submissions from all around the world. We will announce the PacX Challenge finalists on November 19, 2012. Until then, our distinguished science board will be working hard to evaluate the great abstracts.

PacX on the web | PacX Blog