The world's first unmanned diving device to monitor CO2 in the ocean

An unmanned diving device with a built-in large sensor to measure carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the ocean has completed its first night mission at Resurrection Bay in Alaska (USA).

Deployed in the Gulf of Alaska this spring to discover new things about the ocean's chemistry amid climate change, the rover is specifically designed to dive 1,000 meters and "travel" to remote areas in the seabed.

The device is expected to bring an important step forward in monitoring greenhouse gas emissions in the ocean, because until now, measuring CO2 concentrations - a method of quantifying ocean acidification - has mainly is done through ships, buoys and anchors that dove on the bottom of the ocean.

Equipment to monitor CO2 in the ocean floor.

"Ocean acidification is a process by which humans release CO2 into the atmosphere through combustion activities," said Andrew McDonnell, an oceanographer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Science. fossil fuels and land-use change".

The oceans have favored humans when actively receiving a significant amount of CO2. Otherwise, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be even more and make the Earth heat up faster. Even so, Claudine Hauri, an oceanographer with the International Center for Arctic Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said: 'But the problem is that now the chemical environment in the oceans is changing due to absorption. this".

Studies show that ocean acidification can harm and kill certain marine life. Meanwhile, increased acidity in the oceans affects the shell formation of some marine organisms, making them more likely to die off or become more vulnerable to predators. bait.

Over the past several weeks, Mr. Andrew McDonnell and his wife, Hauri McDonnell, have been working with engineers from Cyprus Tourism Supply and Consulting Company - a supplier of submersibles and 4H-Jena - a German company supplies sensors fitted to unmanned submersibles.

Each day they sent the submersible further into Resurrection Bay from its starting point in the coastal community of Seward, to conduct tests. Once programmed, the device will move on its own according to navigation instructions, know when to sample and when to surface, and send a locator signal back to the vessel to be picked up. At the end of the journey, the 59kg device is again towed back on board, the sensor is removed and the data is downloaded to a server to aid in analysis.

The 0.30-meter-long sensor with a diameter of 15.24 centimeters resembles a laboratory in a pipeline, with pumps, valves and moving membranes to separate the gas from the seawater. The sensor analyzes CO2 and logs and stores data inside a temperature controlled system. Many of these sensor components use battery power.

According to Richard Feely, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Pacific Environmental Laboratory, acidification effects have been recorded in the Pacific Northwest on the Pacific Ocean. with oysters, Dungeness crabs and many other creatures. Previously, Canadian scientists also attached a smaller prototype CO2 sensor to an unmanned instrument in the Labrador Sea, but concluded that the device did not meet the goals of observing ocean acidification. .

The goal of Mr. Andrew McDonnell and his colleagues is to have a diving fleet operating in all oceans globally in the future, thereby providing a more realistic assessment, and can predict the future. hybrid in a better way.