A new era for ocean observation AUVs coupled with chemical sensors will enhance our understanding of the marine environment

摘要

Our current understanding of the inter-linked biological, chemical and physical processes occurring in the ocean interior is mainly based on one-dimensional snapshots from vertical profiles obtained from conventional instrument packages and analysis of collected samples. When sufficiently spatially intensive, this approach can give a much improved knowledge of distributions of biological and chemical properties and, potentially, processes (as in the case of the international GEOTRACES programme studying trace elements and their isotopes in the ocean). However, more detailed information on short-term changes in space and time, and underlying processes, still remains elusive. Higher resolution information is particularly important if we wish to follow large-scale biological impacts on a seasonal basis, or short-term physicochemical influences including mixing and stratification in shelf waters. Newly developed autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), coupled to innovative in situ chemical analyser systems, are now beginning to provide this type of high-resolution data, and are set to become important devices for research into oceanic processes occurring over a range of time- and space-scales (Figure 1).