The drone they are talking about here is the underwater version, otherwise known as a glider. Gliders are vehicles that carry a suite of oceanographic sensors that measure ocean properties. This could include a CTD to estimate physical properties such as temperature, salinity, depth and sound speed or oxygen, chlorophyll fluorescence and backscatter sensors to measure biological properties. Oceanographers love these things because they are autonomous, meaning they can drive themselves with only a little help from humans on shore (although they sometimes do need to wake up at ungodly hours to help redirect them). Plus, they are much cheaper than using a ship.

From the vague and conflicting description on news reports, I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what kind of “ocean glider” was seized by the Chinese. It is either this Seaglider

or this Slocum Glider:

Operationally, both of these gliders work pretty much the same. They are buoyancy-driven, which means they have a bladder that fills up with either oil or seawater allowing it to sink or float. The wings force the glider forward as it is diving and dive pitch and speed is adjusted by internally shifiting weight inside the body (usually the heavy battery pack). The Seaglider also uses changes in the location of the battery pack to roll itself and steer, while the Slocum Glider steers with an adorable little rudder. What differs is the range and the scientific payloads these gliders can carry. Generally Seagliders go deeper but carry less stuff, while Slocum’s cruise the shallow seas and can be more heavily loaded.

It’s pretty well known that the US has economic and security interests in the region around the South China Sea where the drone was seized. These ocean gliders have been used here before, the Office of Naval Research regularly supports oceanographic research in the region. The question to ask is not why the glider was taken, as it was unclassified and a small asset, rather why was it taken now? As of the writing of this article, the answer to this question is still unclear. However, the US and China have struck a deal and apparently the US is getting its glider back unharmed, which is good news for once ocean robot who took an unexpected detour.

The post Ocean robot seized, causes international incident first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I asked, “What were the events that lead to you to dive the Marianas Trench?”

Don Walsh one of two men to first visit the deepest point of the world’s ocean and one of only three to succeed at this responded quickly.

“I found myself there for all the wrong reasons.”

Don Walsh probably always possessed the explorer gene.  But it was genes plus environment that produced Walsh.  Walsh grew up in the large port of San Francisco Bay inundated with the salty air, large ships, small boats, dark waters, a busy port, and the momentous Fleet Week. These potentially hinted that something beyond San Francisco existed, something more to explore, and the commonness of people traveling to new places. “It seemed natural that I join the Navy.”

Oddly Walsh’s Naval career started off on a torpedo bomber facing backward. “I really wanted to be in the pilot seat facing forward.”  The best way toward this was obtaining a college degree and particularly through the Naval Academy.  When I asked how he succeeded in gaining entrance into the prestigious Naval Academy, Walsh replied “Luck.”  Upon completion, all graduates of the academy are required to serve as watch officers aboard a surface ship for two years.  After serving aboard both the USS Wisconsin and the Albany, Walsh had hoped to specialize in aviation and return to the cockpit.  However, poor eye sight prevented this path. Thus began a career as a submariner.

Eventually he was asked to join the submarine command staff in San Diego. The position was temporary. As other submarines and their officers cycled through the port, they would also cycle through Walsh’s position.  Each officer serving in this post was to return back to a field command aboard a submarine after six weeks.  This did not happen.  “I did my job too well and was kept in the post.”

Eventually in 1958, the Office of Naval Research purchased the Bathyscaphe Trieste from the French Navy. Given the proximity to deep water, the U.S. Navy decided the Trieste should join the fleet at San Diego.  Walsh was contacted to learn about this submersible and eventually brief the commander.

Two pilots were needed to operate Trieste.  The closest the U.S Navy could offer were the intermediate ranking officers of submarines.  Walsh was given the order to send out a message to these officers in the Pacific Fleet asking for volunteers to train and eventually pilot the Trieste.  Only one of twelve potentials volunteered to pilot this metal sphere to deepest parts of the oceans. Eager to leave his San Diego desk and return to the sea, Walsh volunteered for the other position.

The other volunteering officer outranked Walsh.  As coincidence or fate would have, however, the senior officer fell ill, and Walsh became the ranking Naval officer on the Trieste project.  Just three months after joining the project in March 1959, Don Walsh dove to 4,000 feet, ten times deeper than the during his previous posts aboard submarines.  One year later off Guam, the delay needed as the Trieste was originally only designed to dive to 20,000 feet, Walsh would go more than 100 times deeper.

Walsh and I never discussed the actual dive on the Challenger Deep as so many others before have covered this ground with him. Instead I choose to finish our discussion in another way. When I asked Don Walsh what question he wished somebody would ask him, he responded,

“Why is this all important?  Why must we visit the deepest spots of our oceans?”

Walsh started his answer by relaying what a commanding officer said to him when he showed him a photograph of fish taken in the Challenger Deep, “Most expensive goddam picture of fish ever taken!”

Walsh, a pragmatic man and a rare trait in explorer but perhaps common of retired naval officers, finally answered “We have seen the origins of plates at mid-oceanic ridges, it only makes sense we would see their demise at the bottom of trenches.” And for a brief second the explorer gene was stronger than the gene for pragmatism, “Also because it’s there and we can.”

Jacque Cousteau once said to his son Jean-Michel that his life was “a lot of little things that came together just right.”  Cousteau’s and Walsh’s life both exemplify the opportunity of the unplanned and the ability and drive to pursue and recognize it. Our paths in life are often not a strait trajectory from here and now at point A to the future point B, even if we know exactly what we B to be.  Kevin’s personal story and others as part of the I Am Science project are beautiful reminders of the tangled path we wander and the series of unexpected events we encounter. As an undergraduate I was deeply disappointed when a professor did not choose me to dive in St. Croix conducting reef fish counts.  Another professor, my alternate choice, did invite me to work in their research group.  That professor eventually became my Ph.D. advisor and instilled passion and knowledge in me for the deep sea, which led to an eventual submersible dive of my own, a marine blog, and recently a discussion and car ride with the legend and man who is Captain Don Walsh.

All we can do is recognize opportunity in the unexpected, long to explore the origin and the conclusion, and sometimes take the risk because it’s there and we can.

The post I Am Science with the First Man to Dive Challenger Deep first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post Thursday Submersible first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I waited patiently for Transformers the movie to release.  Luckily the dialogue, plot, and having to suffer through what Megan Fox tries to pass as acting were balanced by big ass robots transforming into cars.  And with even lower expectations based on some of the worst movie reviews to grace the English language, I like a mindless cow watched Transformers 2. Unfortunately the dialogue, plot, and having to suffer through what Megan Fox tries to pass as acting were not balanced by big ass robots transforming into cars.

Thankfully, I still have real life.  FLIP, the Floating Instrument Platform, is towed to an area in a horizontal position and through changing the ballast flipped into a vertical position.  In the flip postion, most of its 355 foot length resides underwater providing a stable observational even in the roughest seas.  Marine Physical Laboratory (MPL) at Scripps and owned by the US Navy, FLIP set to sea in 1962.

The post Transformers…Ocean Science Style first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Satellites used to fly instruments designed to do one thing, like measure ocean color for instance, but nowadays instruments are multi-tasking like the rest of us. In the scientific space race, this means some instruments suffer the cost of others. Space veterans tell me we’re sending the technical equivalent of a Swiss Army knife into space rather than a simply designed, nicely weighted piece of fine cutlery.

Science magazine has an article this week on the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRs) instrument set to launch in 2009 as part of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP). VIIRs is designed to measure 21 different parameters including ice cover, cloud cover, and forest cover. One thing it will not measure accurately is ocean color, because one of the filters responsible for the job is faulty.

Ocean color data is important for measuring primary productivity and sedimentation, among other things. An example is shown above in a false color scene from Tasmanian waters. Red colors (like those of the big eddy swirling in the upper right corner) indicate high levels of chlorophyll and phytoplankton. Researchers are concerned that if the problem is not fixed, a data gap will emerge in the time series of ocean color data. Space.com has a write-up on the technical aspects of the problem here.

VIIRs would be a fourth generation color sensor. The Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) was launched in 1978 aboard Nimbus 7 as a proof of concept for ocean color sensing, and was considered a cornerstone for our understanding of the ocean’s role in the global carbon cycle. It was only designed to last 1 year, but it remained operational for 8 years. CZCS was followed by SeaWIFs instrument in 1997 and then by MODIS/Aqua in 2002. MODIS/Aqua was designed to last 5 years, apparently, so its nearing the end of its operational lifetime now. If you’re interested to learn more there’s a NASA site describing the past, present, and future instruments here.

The post Another broken satellite first appeared on Deep Sea News.