"Sailing ships, commercial and cruise ships are to support science on a large scale. Companies are equipping themselves with automated measuring networks.
Professional research is not only carried out on research ships. Cruise ships and sailing ships are also already being used by researchers for their purposes. But even they cannot take all interested parties with them - and overall they only provide a small amount of data compared to the vastness of the oceans. In order to close gaps, commercial ships are to be increasingly used as research outposts. Thanks to automated measuring devices, this could soon even happen on a large scale.
With spectacular missions such as wintering in the Arctic, the German research ship Polarstern has become an icon. It has space for dozens of scientists and their equipment, and its successor, for which the tendering process is currently underway, is to offer even better conditions and more research capacity. Nevertheless, such a highly specialized ship can only measure a tiny fraction of the world's oceans.
And the ratio only improves slightly if you include all the ocean-going research vessels worldwide, which are estimated to number around a hundred.
That's why scientists are currently actively looking for more rides - at least for their measuring devices: More and more commercial and cruise ships are being equipped with them, and even sailors are expected to collect research data. Like some boats in the recently started single-handed Vendée Globe regatta, the toughest sailing race in the world.
They each had a device on board that measures the carbon dioxide (CO2) content in the water, temperature and salt concentration, thus providing thousands of data points with precise geographical coordinates.
"These are particularly valuable on the passage through the Southern Ocean, because only a few measurements are taken there," says Toste Tanhua from the Geomar research center in Kiel.
The waters around Antarctica are particularly exciting for science, as large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere enter the ocean there. How much exactly is unclear, but it is important to know in order to quantify the success of climate protection measures, for example, he says. "Even measurements with individual sailing boats can help here," says Tanhua.
Data gaps in model calculations are usually filled using artificial intelligence. The real values from the race participants' boards are also useful because they help to calibrate this mixed system of sporadically obtained and estimated data. This is shown by a study by Tanhua and colleagues, based on previous measurements, including those by the German sailor Boris Herrmann. "With the help of this data, we were able to reduce the uncertainty of the carbon dioxide balance in the Southern Ocean by twenty percent and understand the carbon flows between the atmosphere and the ocean in this region much better."
At the currently ongoing largest single-handed sailing regatta in the world, the Vendée Globe, four boats are already equipped with the autonomous device. "The participants are very interested in making a contribution to science," says Tanhua. At the same time, there is a trend at major sporting events to do more for sustainability. At the next edition, all boats will probably carry some kind of measuring device, he says.
Commercial shipping offers a much greater potential for a measurement network, with around 50,000 freighters sailing all of the world's oceans.
Individual collaborations began decades ago when committed researchers such as Tom Rossby from the University of Rhode Island in Narragansett specifically approached captains: could they deploy oceanographic measuring devices on their route? Or, better yet, install additional instruments on board the ships? "Many were interested and joined in," says Rossby.
This openness - as well as the notoriously limited space on research ships - encouraged Rossby and other scientists to found "RoCS" (Research on Commercial Ships). The initiative now wants to equip commercial ships with "plug & play" devices that researchers from all over the world can book. "So that not everyone goes to the ship captains and speaks to them," says Kerry Strom from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The rational reasons are obvious: automated devices that travel with the ship are cheaper than a researcher on a journey, and the devices themselves ultimately become cheaper when they are no longer developed and manufactured as individual items, but are in demand in larger quantities and used over many years.
In addition, approvals from the countries whose territorial waters are to be crossed are sometimes extremely time-consuming. "Normally, these take up to eight months and are only valid for one trip," says Strom. For the RoCS project ship Bulk Xaymaca, which commutes between Jamaica and New Orleans, she has received approval for all neighboring countries, which is valid for one year.
The ship now continuously measures the currents under the keel using an acoustic sensor in the hull (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler). It also determines weather data.
Many of the commercially available fishing boats are also suitable for data collection. In New Zealand, for example, 250 fishing boats were equipped with sensors. These are attached to the nets in order to determine the water temperature at different depths. The data with geographical coordinates is sent to the researchers in almost real time via a GPS unit on deck, reports a team led by Julie Jakoboski in the journal "Progress in Oceanography". Since the boats travel close to the coast, a very dense observation network is created.
For distant regions, such as the polar regions, cruise ships are particularly suitable. Several shipping companies have started corresponding scientific programs.
The ships have devices that determine, for example, ice thickness and salt, microplastic and CO2 levels in the water.
In some cases, laboratories have been set up on board where researchers can carry out more sophisticated analyses, for example on biodiversity in polar waters.
Such scientists often travel free of charge, which increases the workload for the companies. Ponant from France, for example, estimates the cost of the science program at 2.2 million euros annually and recently announced that it wants to expand it further. When asked about their motivation, the shipping companies involved responded similarly: "We see it as our responsibility to give something back to the sensitive and untouched regions that we travel to," says Verena Meraldi, chief scientist at Hurtigruten Expeditions. "By promoting scientific research and data collection in these areas, we are actively contributing to better understanding and protecting these valuable ecosystems." At the same time, the companies want to create added value for their passengers. The - often young - scientists allow people to look over their shoulders as they work and give lectures. Guests can also take part in citizen science projects that document, for example, observations of the northern lights or Antarctic seabirds.
It is hard to deny that such commitments improve the ecologically tarnished image of the cruise industry. Research institutions are also happy to take advantage of the opportunity to cooperate, provided they are given a place. The shipping companies check whether the projects are scientifically valuable, technically feasible and whether they can be communicated to guests and offer added value.
While the first data from this year's Vendée Globe arrives at Toste Tanhua and colleagues, he is pushing ahead with his new idea. Together with Klas Ove Möller from the Hereon Geesthacht research center, he also wants to equip ordinary sailing boats to collect data.
With industrial partners, they have developed a compact measuring box that continuously takes water samples under the ship's hull, determines the temperature and oxygen content, and takes photos of the plankton. The images are sent to the researchers via a data connection such as Starlink or USB stick. They are trying to use artificial intelligence to draw conclusions about biological activity and carbon turnover.
The box was developed as part of the Helmholtz Association's "SOOP" project ("Shaping an Ocean Of Possibilities for Science-Industry Collaboration"). The idea: instead of less expensive and highly specialized instruments, the industry should produce robust, automated devices - inexpensively and in large numbers. Demand is expected to come from ship owners or sailors, for example. "There is definitely interest," says Möller, who promotes research collaborations at boat shows, among other things. The talks also focus on who will cover the costs.
A measuring box for sailors costs around 1,500 euros as a set of components, and a good 4,000 euros fully assembled. "Not everyone can or wants to pay that, but there are some who have no problem with it."
After the system has already been successfully tested, it is due to come onto the market in a year, says Möller. He hopes that a few hundred, perhaps even a few thousand sailors will be found who will support his research with their data donations and thus put science on a broader basis." [1]
1. Datenspende auf Hoher See. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 04 Dec 2024: N1. Von Ralf Nestler
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