A billion dollars might not be enough to buy a state-of-the-art vessel. Running a research ship can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars a day or more, before factoring in submersible trips to the depths or helicopter flights to remote ice floes. So scientists are increasingly looking at cheaper options for getting essential and fundamental information including temperature, salinity, and depth: so-called “vessels of opportunity”. By piggybacking their work on ships that are already plying the ocean, they can fill some of the huge existing gaps in marine data at a fraction of the cost of hiring a research vessel, reports The Maritime Executive.
Cold, far away, and very, very expensive
One of the most difficult places to work is Antarctica.
Research vessels must first navigate the Southern Ocean’s complex politics and permit systems before they can even hope to navigate its icy waters.
So when one team wanted to hunt for colossal squid in the far south, they found a cheaper option: cruise ships that carry tourists to Antarctica in increasing numbers.
Cruise ships are not without their difficulties. Researchers have no control over where they go, and what times they can drop equipment into the sea, and they must shift equipment around guests getting on and off. While those hunting huge squid may want to target little-studied dark ocean areas, tourists are understandably keener on shores that teem with penguins.
But Graham says her trip was “definitely a success” – the team made 36 camera deployments in a little-studied region and even captured footage of what may be a colossal squid. If true, this would be the first footage of the animal in its natural habitat.
On the highways of the seas
While there are only around 100 ocean-going research vessels and a few hundred cruise ships, there are over 50,000 commercial vessels at sea.
One is the CMV Oleander. Every week the freighter travels between New Jersey on the east coast of the United States and Bermuda. Since 1992 it has collected data on the Gulf Stream with every journey.
Ships have been gathering weather data – what happens above the surface – for many years, but Oleander does something far rarer. It was built with a sensor called an ‘Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler’ fitted to it, allowing it to measure currents – what is happening below the surface.
Research vessel time is so precious that repeat location visits may be rare. The Oleander project offers something different and valuable: the ability to gather data on the same patch of sea repeatedly.
Some of those involved in the Oleander work are now steering Science Research on Commercial Ships (Science RoCS), one of several programs around the world looking to increase the opportunistic use of ships by researchers. Science RoCS wants to build links between the shipping industry and science communities, linking up scientists with instruments and people with ships, enabling repeated measurements on a vast scale in areas rarely visited by research ships.
Go fish (for science)
While there are tens of thousands of merchant vessels plying the ocean, there are millions of fishing boats.
As well as data gathered in the course of fishing – such as details of what is caught and where – these boats are increasingly being enlisted to measure things specifically for scientists. In the United States, more than 100 boats that work off the coast of New England have been rigged to measure temperature and oxygen levels via sensors attached to lobster pots. New Zealand has gone even further. The Te Tiro Moana (Eyes on the Ocean in M? ori) program now involves 200 vessels, over a third of the country’s fishing fleet.
Cooper Van Vranken is the founder and CEO of Ocean Data Network which leads the Fishing Vessel Ocean Observing Network (FVON). He works to match existing sensors with fishing boats, managing and distributing the data generated. “What’s unique about fishing vessels is the opportunity to collect that subsurface data because the traps are already going down. It turns out we have way more subsurface data out in the open ocean than we do in close to shore … where the fishing takes place,” he says.
Cooper’s dream is to create a vastly bigger, globe-spanning network measuring temperature, salinity, and other important ocean information, under the banner of the FVON. In a recent research paper, he and others wrote that “the global fishing industry represents a vast opportunity to create a paradigm shift in how ocean data are collected.”
The past year has been a busy one. FVON joined the umbrella body for ocean data gathering, the Global Ocean Observing System, and earned a mention in a white paper for the UN on the need to expand ocean observing.
Cooper told Dialogue Earth that there were probably 2 million fishing vessels around the world that could be harnessed and currently nearing 1,000 were already being utilized for data collection.
Setting sail for science
Fishing boats and freighters’ travel routes are determined by what pays. But some vessels sail where their owners please: private yachts.
Several programs are now attempting to harness yachts to gather a dizzying variety of ocean information. Yachts for Science is one of them. It has previously put a manta ray researcher on a cruise in the Maldives and helped a scientist studying black coral to work off a super yacht in Indonesian waters.
The key thing for her organization is matchmaking between researchers with projects they want to do, and yacht owners who will be in the right place to help them.
Acknowledging the privilege of being able to be on a ship, any ship is important to Woodall, a marine conservation and policy researcher at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.
A lot of ocean data is biased towards the waters of Global North countries, or areas they are interested in. Vessels of opportunity could help fill many of these gaps for areas governed by countries that lack well-funded national research ships and universities.
If the hopes of those behind these and other vessels of opportunity programs are realized, one day research at sea will not be so expensive, because nearly every ship will have the ability to do research.
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Source: The Maritime Executive
