Carbon Dioxide Glider

Warming, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation are increasingly putting pressure on marine ecosystems. At the same time, thawing permafrost and decomposing hydrates in Arctic shelf seas may release unprecedented amounts of CH4 into the water column, which could accelerate local ocean acidification and contribute to climate change. The key parameters to observing and understanding these complex processes and feedback mechanisms are vastly undersampled throughout the oceans. 

Our team developed CO2 and CH4 gliders in collaboration with Advanced Offshore Operations and -4H-Jena (Hauri et al., 2024). Several sea trials with the CO2 Seaglider in the Gulf of Alaska and data evaluation with discrete water and underway samples suggest near ‘weather quality’ CO2 data as defined by the Global Ocean Acidification Network (see figures below). Both sensing systems are available to the science community through the industry partners (Advanced Offshore Operations and -4H-JENA) of this project.