Hooking the Ocean Up to the Intertubes
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 08.28.07
Oceanographers and marine biologists will tell you that one of the main challenges they face when conducting research aboard a ship is obtaining all the data and visuals they need without an Internet connection. Well, no more: a new joint U.S.-Canadian project, dubbed NEPTUNE, has just laid down submarine fiber-optic cables in the Pacific Ocean as a first step in its objective to create the world's first wired ocean observatory. Its Canadian division, NEPTUNE Canada, plans on hooking up hundreds of oceanographic instruments to the Internet with the help of a 500-mile (800 km) long fiber-optic cable that will encircle the northern Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. Scientists expect it to be up and running by late 2008.
The more than 200 instruments will include underwater microphones, nutrient sensors, video cameras, seismometers and wave sensors — all of which will provide a continuous stream of data to Vancouver Island's Port Alberni Shore Station. "This is a fundamental revolution giving us a direct connection to the seafloor... the ocean will no longer control our ability to study it," said Marcia McNutt, president of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), which has built a short undersea cable — MARS — to act as a test bed for the instruments being deployed by NEPTUNE Canada.
Because marine scientists had previously been limited by the amount of data they could collect — at best getting only brief snapshots of the oceans — many are predicting that these new capabilities will usher in a wave of exciting and unique findings that could revolutionize the research field. Steve Etchemendy, the senior scientist heading up the MARS operations, hopes that these tools will yield a treasure trove of data on one of the most difficult regions to study — the polar areas. "Our polar areas are the canaries in the coalmine for global change and the ability to actually put oceanographic observatories both in the north polar and south polar areas would be fantastic," he said.
Via ::National Geographic News: New Undersea Cable Will Link Ocean to Internet (news website)
See also: ::Mother Jones Presents Ocean Voyager, ::Searching for New Life in the Ocean Depths
Image courtesy of National Geographic
It's about time we do more observing of the oceans. We spend billions exploring space, yet we still no nothing about the vast majority of our own planet. One of these should have been built before we ever went to the moon. Think about how much more we would know about global warming and our oceans if an observatory like this was built 40 years ago.
This is great news. As to the comment before, the reason why Ocean Science is just getting around to this is because of poor funding. But also, Fiber optics is still very new. In the past scientists have only had access to communication lines that phone companies were abandoning. But over all, the Ocean Science community gets a fraction of the money that NASA gets annually. NASA research is often way more "sexy" so it has a lot of people supporting it. Don't forget that in the US, the first 3 things that are on the cutting block is Schools, Art Funding, and Science Funding. Even today at NASA they are shutting down practical scientific observation programs that monitor the earth and spending there money on getting to Mars or other "cooler" programs.
But to be honest, Fiber optic technology, and cheap fiber technology is what is key to this program. Plus, systems had to be designed on how to plug and unplug instruments into the cable at depth. The ocean is far more unforgiving the space.
There are other big scientific revolutions going on because of the endless amounts of data being collected. In the past, a ship would go out, take some measurements, come in and people would study that data for a year or two. Now data comes in at real time. The other big change is who owns the data. Because of the huge fight over funding scientist have often coveted the data they have collected. The concept of free endless information is another battle, because maintenance of the system is necessary. So there are lots of hidden challenges and lots of politics behind projects like this.
This is very cool. It will be a new era of ocean science.