Navy Helps Climatologists Predict Ocean Currents

Navy Ship Launches Profilers To Help Climatologists Predict Deep Ocean Currents

Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ship HMAS Adelaide may be on its swan-song voyage before its decommissioning next year but the ship's company is taking part in a futuristic project to help scientists predict the influence of climate change on deep ocean currents.

The RAN is working with the CSIRO's Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research in Hobart to measure deep ocean temperatures and currents through the deployment of robotic ocean profilers that are part of the Argo ocean monitoring program.

Argo is an international collaboration of over 25 countries that collects temperature and salinity profiles from the upper 2000 metres of the ice-free global ocean. Some profiling floats also measure oxygen, turbidity and deep ocean currents.

The $25,000 floats or profilers have a life of around four years. They drift with the currents and cycle between a depth of 2,000 metres and the surface every 10 days, uploading their temperature and salinity data to satellite while on the surface. They are a central feature of Australia's new Integrated Marine Observing System, bringing together existing and new components of a network to observe coastal waters and the deep ocean.

Recently during its final voyage to India and South East Asia for Exercise MALABAR, Adelaide launched a set of floats North West of Christmas Island, bringing to 11 the total number of floats deployed from the ship.

Data from the floats deployed by Adelaide are combined with information from almost 3000 floats which are currently active world-wide, giving climate researchers unprecedented access to ocean temperature and salinity profiles from areas which are otherwise inaccessible. Argo data underpins all current research into climate change and variability and provides critical input to the joint RAN/Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO project BlueLINK, designed to deliver ocean forecasts (similar to weather forecasts) to the Australian maritime community.

The Commanding Officer of Adelaide, Commander Rob Slaven, said that it was pleasing that Adelaide was able to contribute to the Argo program during its final voyage prior its decommissioning on 19 January 2008.

"The data gleaned from the Argo array will not only enhance the Navy's own capability to operate effectively in changing maritime and climatic conditions but will also enable future generations to develop the tools to better manage the deep ocean environment," Commander Slaven said.

ENDS