NOAA-AOML plays a leadership role in the international effort to collect environmental data in the global ocean. As part of this effort, widely known as the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), scientists deploy oceanographic instruments such as Argo floats, expendable bathythermographs (XBTs), and surface drifters to collect information about the ocean’s currents, temperature, and salinity. The data obtained are critical for weather forecasts and climate studies.
The success of the Global Ocean
Observing
System is partly possible
thanks to a strong partnership between
NOAA and the shipping industry.
One of
these partners is the Maersk Line, the
world’s largest container shipping
company.
For almost 15 years, approximately
30 Maersk vessels have supported
AOML’s global observational activities
by providing
platforms for scientific riders
to deploy oceanographic instruments. Since the early 2000s, more than 12,000
XBTs have been deployed from Maersk
ships. These vessels have also provided
deployment opportunities for hundreds of
Argo floats and surface drifters.
The support
of Maersk Line on XBT
operations
is an example of the impact this
type of collaboration has on AOML's XBT network. In just the last 5 years, more than 8,000 XBTs have been deployed from the Maersk ships Visby and Vilnius which, combined, have completed 21 Atlantic XBT transects between Cape Town, South Africa, and Newark, New Jersey. The data obtained from these transects are used to investigate the variability of zonal currents in the tropical Atlantic and
the subtropical gyre in the South and North Atlantic oceans. The data have also been used to write numerous articles for scientific journals on these topics. Maersk Line is, therefore, an excellent example of how private industry's voluntary contributions are improving our understanding of the ocean's currents and thermal structure, while also helping NOAA accomplish
its goals.