An autonomous mobile platform for underway surface carbon measurements in open-ocean and coastal waters

Abstract

The NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and Liquid Robotics, Inc., are collaborating to address an urgent need for long-term in-situ observation of carbon parameters over broad swathes of the global coastal and open ocean by integrating a suite of state-of-the-art pC02, pH, and CTD sensors onto a Wave Glider wave-propelled autonomous marine vehicle (AMV). The resulting Biogeochemical Wave Glider will be capable both of acting as a long-duration (up to 1 year) "virtual mooring" to augment the existing sparse collection of moored carbon science sensors and of conducting autonomous, basin-scale ocean transits to provide new insight into the spatial variability of carbon uptake and associated parameters.