Argo floats diving to 6,000 metres: Ifremer sounds the abyss
A small piece of news from Ifremer has cheered me up lately. Two prototypes of the Argo Deep-6000 float have made their first autonomous dives at sea, north of the Antilles. Since 11 January, each one has already completed five full cycles down to 6,000 metres.
What interests me is the why. About 10% of the total ocean warming happens below 2,000 metres, and the data suggest a strong warming signal exists below 4,000 metres in the Southern Ocean, a signal that then spreads northward. Until now, most floats did not reach that deep. These instruments will measure salinity, temperature, oxygen and pressure almost in real time and send their data by satellite.
Technically, it is quite clever: the body is made of composite material rather than titanium, and the device weighs 40 kg against 20 kg for a conventional float. Each cycle lasts ten days, and the design aims for seven years of service. The prototypes were designed in Plouzané with the company nke Instrumentation, which developed the electronics and software.
France thus becomes, after the United States and China, the third country to design Argo profilers capable of reaching these depths. The stated goal is to operate 30 six-thousand-metre floats by 2028, mainly in the North Atlantic. The Argo programme, launched in 2000, has about 4,000 floats, of which nearly 1,250 can descend below 2,000 metres.
I find it moving that we explore the abyss not with a large, spectacular submarine but with a small, patient object that rises and sinks every ten days for years. It is a quiet kind of exploration, but it is what will tell us how the ocean is really changing.
Source: Ifremer / ANR
What interests me is the why. About 10% of the total ocean warming happens below 2,000 metres, and the data suggest a strong warming signal exists below 4,000 metres in the Southern Ocean, a signal that then spreads northward. Until now, most floats did not reach that deep. These instruments will measure salinity, temperature, oxygen and pressure almost in real time and send their data by satellite.
Technically, it is quite clever: the body is made of composite material rather than titanium, and the device weighs 40 kg against 20 kg for a conventional float. Each cycle lasts ten days, and the design aims for seven years of service. The prototypes were designed in Plouzané with the company nke Instrumentation, which developed the electronics and software.
France thus becomes, after the United States and China, the third country to design Argo profilers capable of reaching these depths. The stated goal is to operate 30 six-thousand-metre floats by 2028, mainly in the North Atlantic. The Argo programme, launched in 2000, has about 4,000 floats, of which nearly 1,250 can descend below 2,000 metres.
I find it moving that we explore the abyss not with a large, spectacular submarine but with a small, patient object that rises and sinks every ten days for years. It is a quiet kind of exploration, but it is what will tell us how the ocean is really changing.
Source: Ifremer / ANR
Comments 0
Leave the first comment, in any language.
Log in to comment