By Bob Zuur
WWF-New Zealand Marine Advocate
In the Southern Ocean (Latitude 58oS, Longitude 163oE)
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Bob Zuur is a marine biologist who is spending a month
exploring Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic Islands
to raise awareness of the area and its importance. His current work with WWF
focuses on fisheries, offshore oil exploration and seabed mining, and on
increasing protected areas in our marine environment. He will be
documenting his travels here on
3news.co.nz.
Our
Far South Bob Zuur RSS Feed
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We are now about a day southeast from Macquarie Island. The blue grey sea is dappled with white foam and big swells push the Spirit along at 13 knots. A large albatross, possibly a Royal, arced between the swells, pausing for a moment on its journey.
Dan Zwartz from Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre has twenty-one $US30,000 Argo floats he's planning to throw overboard as part of the Our Far South voyage. These floats are funded by two US Universities.
These floats follow the ocean currents 1000 metres down. They regularly descend down to 2000 metres and on their way back to the surface take measurements of temperature, oxygen and salinity, transmitting the data and their position to satellites. Dan's floats will add to the few dozen others south of 60oS in the Southern Ocean. The technology to make them cope with sea ice is new.
Since it was Gareth's birthday, he had the pleasure of throwing his "present" overboard. Rhian Salmon counted down the latitude on a GPS (58oS) and then Gareth and Dan threw the float over the side.
Weather forecasters and climate scientists rely on a network of recording stations. The scarcity of land is a real challenge to establishing such a network in the Southern Ocean. This is where the Argo floats come in. They provide data for climate modeling and weather and seasonal forecasting (e.g. El Nino). Data provided to date shows clearly that the upper 2000 metres of the oceans have warmed over the last ten years and that this warming is continuing. This includes the Southern Ocean. But I wasn't thinking about warming later that day as the first snow flurried down.
You might spot the smallest member of the Our Far South team in the photo. Shackleton Bear is officially the Ship Bear and is writing a blog for children on the Our Far South website. Check it out!