Meet the new generation of robots that are testing technical boundaries and changing the face of oceanography!
Autonomous robots are a new state of the art oceanographic glider. A glider fleet of 80 are currently used by the Canadian-Pacific Robotic Ocean Observing Facility (C-PROOF), a partnership of the University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the Hakai Institute.
These robots are capable of following preprogrammed paths set by pilots hundreds of kilometers away. Gliders can collect chemical, biological, physical, and acoustic data, and transmits it back to the facility via satellite. Glider data can be added to the existing data stream to create a more detailed picture of conditions from the British Columbia coast to offshore waters more than 1,000 meters deep.
Along with helping researchers grasp the effects of climate change, better data about ocean conditions will enhance their ability to understand changes to marine food webs—and thus the productivity of commercial fisheries. It will also enable and inform more accurate models that can better predict what will happen in the future.
One glider named "Eva" is located below the surface of Queen Charlotte Sound, off the coast of British Columbia. However the team have detected some technical difficulties from frequent dives in extreme ocean pressure. Follow along with the team on an emergency rescue mission to recover Eva before she's lost forever!
