Slocum Glider - Persistent Ocean Observation

Date/Time:

15 Mar 2012
10:00-10:25

Location:

South Galleries

Mr Clayton Jones, Teledyne Webb Research

Seminar Details
The projects that I have always liked best are the ones conceived on the spur of the moment by an inquisitive individual. We try to reserve twenty percent of our Slocums to pursue such sudden inspirations. They are generally the most exciting; they evolve in unexpected ways and reveal new dimensions of the unknown about the ocean.' Henry Stommel, The SLOCUM Mission, 1989. Two decades have passed since Stommel's futuristic article popularized Doug Webb's underwater glider concept. Stommel's imagination was sparked by the opportunity gliders provided to broaden our understanding of the oceans and perhaps even more important to him, by the potential it had to draw peoples interest and excitement for ocean dynamics. The ongoing collaboration between Teledyne Webb Research (TWR) and Rutgers University highlight the status of the technology today along with examples of three main mission objectives: polar regions, urban shelves, and long duration transects approximating the course of the Challenger expedition of 1872-76. A Slocum G2 flight, en route from Iceland to the Canary Islands, draws together the International Consortium of Ocean Observing Labs (I-COOL) continuing a focus of international and educational outreach. Certainly, gliders have gone from a notebook entry to become an integral part of the early adopter's oceanographic toolbox. With the advent of procurements of Slocum gliders in large numbers by both the US Navy and the Ocean Observation Initiative (OOI) we are on the cusp to realizing Stommel's vision of fleets roaming the oceans.