Climate: new deployment of Argos beacons to probe ocean warming

An Argos beacon.

(cc) Wikimedia / Pliny

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In order to measure climate change via changes in the oceans, the Argo network, a scientific program for analyzing marine territories, will deploy additional beacons to analyze changes in the ocean.

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For the past twenty years or so, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the World Weather Organization have installed marine beacons all over the world.

Currently,

has 4,000 floats distributed in all the oceans to measure the degree of salinity and the warming of seawater.

The

is the third biggest contributors of data loggers.

And while 

brings together more than a hundred leaders to reflect on how to reduce the global warming which threatens our planet, France, which already has 277 beacons, has started the deployment of a hundred additional beacons since Tuesday.

These beacons collect changes in ocean temperatures almost in real time, which makes it possible to model climatic changes and their consequences.

These floats, which are in fact autonomous robots running on solar energy, then transmit the data collected by satellites to the scientists who process the collected information.

Until then, the deployment of beacons had been done from motor boats, but to better reduce the carbon impact of the expeditions, the scientists this time used a sailing vessel.

Another benefit of using a sailboat: the cost of the expedition is divided by 10.

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