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Why are Gliders important?

Why are Gliders important?   How does it work?   How do we plan to use them in Mersea?   Status Spray 004 PAP Spray 004 CIS IFM-02 Med Sea

Marine environment constitutes an extremely complex system, characterized by strong interactions between physical, chemical and biological processes. The high spatio-temporal variability of these processes  and their interactions make difficult the study of the marine ecosystem: first, because they imply the need to measure physical, chemical and biological parameters simultaneously and second, because they impose to carry out ocean measurements at high spatial and temporal resolutions. Observations of the marine environment have been traditionally carried out by oceanographic ships, moorings and floats. All these observing platforms can carry out interdisciplinary measurements of the ocean, but not with the spatio-temporal resolution required.

The widest variety of interdisciplinary measurements at high spatial resolution can be obtained from oceanographic ships. Unfortunately, logistical and economical aspects involved in oceanographic ships usage invalidate them as platforms able to carry out continuous and sustained ocean observations. With less capacity concerning the measured parameters, ships of opportunity can be used for ocean monitoring but they need to be manned on each trip and are constrained by existing maritime routes so they do not always pass the sections of maximum scientific interest.

Unlike oceanographic ships, moorings provide interdisciplinary data with very high temporal resolution over long periods. Nowadays, moorings can operate for more than five years.. Satellites and submarine cables can convert them into sustained ocean observing platforms, allowing near real time data transfer from moorings to land bases. However, the spatial resolution  is very poor unless an unrealistic number of moorings is considered.

Profiling floats naturally drift away from their deployment locations according to currents and cannot be used to maintain measurements in a particular region, unless a very high number of floats is used to monitor the ocean in a global way as it is done in the framework of the ARGO program. At the moment, floats are mainly used to carry out physical measurements because the cost of biogeochemical sensors prevent them to be deployed as massively as required for this “random” sampling strategy.

© Webb Research Corporation

A notorious advance in ocean knowledge has been achieved with the above described ocean observing platforms, but ocean monitoring is still insufficient. Limitations of conventional ocean observing platforms avoid monitoring the ocean at adequate spatial and temporal resolutions. For this reason and with the help of present technological development, new ocean observing platforms able to be steered remotely and to carry out continuously ocean measurements at high spatial and temporal resolution, have been developed. Gliders come from the idea that a network of small, intelligent and cheap observing platforms can fill the gaps leaved by the other observing platforms.