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Diving for Data

November 6, 2017

Bosun Pete Liarikos (left) and UNOLS technician Drew Cole recover an ocean glider from the water onto research vessel Neil Armstrong on a recent trip to the Ocean Observatories Initiative’s (OOI) Global Irminger Sea Array in the North Atlantic near Greenland. The autonomous underwater vehicles have two distinct missions at the OOI global sites. Some travel between the moorings that make up the triangular array, collecting data and relaying them back to shore via satellite. Others “fly” around a single mooring, measuring oxygen, nitrate, and other water quality characteristics from the surface down to 1,000 meters. (Photo by Rebecca Travis, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)