An ocean first: Underwater drone tracks CO2 in Alaska gulf

It wasn’t a spout from humpback whales that power through this scenic fjord, or a sea otter lazing on its back, munching a king crab.Instead, everyone aboard the Nanuq, a University of Alaska Fairbanks research vessel, was looking where a 5-foot (1.52-meter) long, bright pink underwater sea glider surfaced.The glider — believed to be the first configured with a large sensor to measure carbon dioxide levels in the ocean — had just completed its first overnight mission. He said Hauri was a graduate student in 2007 when she accompanied him on the first acidification cruise he ever led.The challenge, Feely said, is to make the measurements on a glider with the same degree of accuracy and precision as tests on board ships.“We need to get confidence in our measurements and confidence in our models if we are going to make important scientific statements about how the oceans are changing over time and how it’s going to impact our important economic systems that are dependent on the food from the sea," he said, noting that acidification impacts are already seen in the Pacific Northwest on oysters, Dungeness crabs and other species.Researchers in Canada had previously attached a smaller, prototype CO2 sensor to an underwater drone in the Labrador Sea but found it did not yet meet the targets for ocean acidification observations.“The tests showed that the glider sensor worked in a remote-harsh environment but needed more development,” Nicolai von Oppeln-Bronikowski, the Glider Program Manager with the Ocean Frontier Institute at Memorial University of Newfoundland, said in an email.The two teams are “just using two different types of sensors to solve the same issue, and it’s always good to have two different options,” Hauri said.There is no GPS unit inside the underwater autonomous drone.