Growing ocean sensor network will improve forecasts
Sofar Ocean, a company that makes instruments that collect vital ocean data, says it now has enough of them deployed to provide a glimpse into half of the world’s oceans.
The company says that by the end of 2021, it hopes to have buoys covering all the oceans.
There are already more than 1000 low-cost, remotely controlled Spotter coastal and open ocean drifter buoys deployed. The data from them goes into a proprietary marine weather prediction model, and can also be used to help improve models run by others, including government agencies.
The drifter buoys – which move with ocean currents – are not as sophisticated as many government-deployed sensors,
such as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) network of buoys.
The NOAA is already working
with private sector satellite companies to help improve the accuracy of its weather forecasting models.
Each Sofar Ocean drifter buoy provides real-time wave, wind, temperature and ocean current information, and can be deployed by hand from a ship.
The company currently covers the Pacific Ocean, and CEO Tim Janssen said that if its network expanded over the entire planet, the data collected would support improved weather forecasts that would help captains decide whether to reroute their ships around stormy seas.
The buoys would also help research that might be useful for climate scientists studying how the oceans were responding to global warming, he said.
One current customer of the Sofar platform is the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, which invests in nextgeneration technology that could have applications that benefit the US military. The World Meteorological Organisation is also incorporating Sofar Ocean’s data, along with about 70 universities.
‘‘Large-scale distributed sensor networks revolutionised digitisation on land and in space. Now we bring it to the world’s oceans,’’ said Janssen, who has a background in physical oceanography.
Leveraging its own data, Sofar has developed a ship-routing service that incorporates changes in sea conditions, and is working with Berge Bulk and other shipping companies to help them reduce fuel use and avoid them spilling cargo containers into the sea during major storms.
Sofar is also helping to monitor coral reefs around the world through a platform known as Aqualink, which can identify areas vulnerable to coral bleaching.