We constantly hear about drones taking to the skies and how they can make life easier for us.  But with the more than 70% of the earth’s surface being covered by oceans, drones have also proven to be a great water based tool as well.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is pioneering the way drones are used to collect data in the oceans.  With two main branches, the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and Ocean Climate Stations (OCS) they have set out to gather information about the oceans and their effects on the world.  

According to the NOAA website, “The mission of the Ocean Climate Stations Project (OCS) is to make meteorological and oceanic measurements from autonomous platforms. These reference time series and innovative measurements are used to improve satellite products and forecast models, and improve our understanding of air-sea interactions, and their role within the climate system.”  One of the ways they have done this is by partnering up with a company called Saildrone to build the necessary autonomous data collecting platform.

First founded in 2012 with the goal of setting land speed records, Saildrone has moved into the world of drones.  The years of research and design that went into their land speed project is now the basis for the wing in Saildrone’s patented technology, a very unique type of drone.  The description on their website states, “A Saildrone is an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that combines wind-powered propulsion technology and solar-powered meteorological and oceanographic sensors to perform autonomous long-range data collection missions in the harshest ocean environments.”

Saildrones are completely autonomous.  They use solar panels attached to the wing to give it data collecting power and the wind for propulsion.  It looks like a bright orange mini submarine with a single metal sail sprouting from the top of it as it cruises along the water.  The hull is 23′ long and the mast is 15′ tall.  Saildrones have a range of more than 16,000 nautical miles, can reach speeds of 2-8kts, and can be out on a mission for up to 12 months.  Best of all, they collect data just as well as manned research ships but at a fraction of the cost, and without posing risk to human lives in treacherous waters.

Recently the OCS and Saildrone completed a landmark mission.  Over the course of 196 days a Saildrone circumnavigated the 22,000km around Antarctica.  In doing so the Saildrone was able to gather the most detailed images and samples of the area ever.  No manned ship has ever been able to accomplish this because of the extreme conditions surrounding Antarctica.  With icebergs scattered all over, winds that can exceed 80 mph, 50′ waves, and frigid temperatures, accessing the region has been a massive struggle.  But with the data collected by the Saildrone scientists hope to be able to unlock some mysteries.

The occurrences in the Southern Ocean have a great impact on atmospheric and meteorological forces.  With this new information scientists will be able to make better world wide predictions that can have a massive ecological impact.  One of the major findings influences theories scientists had already made about how the Arctic region removes carbon dioxide from the air.  It was believed that the Arctic oceans absorbed far more carbon than what the data from the Saildrone collected.  Adrienne Sutton, an oceanographer with the PMEL said, “There’s a lot left to be learned about the ocean’s uptake of CO2 emissions, especially in the Southern Ocean. Up until a few years ago, the Southern Ocean was understood to be a large CO2 sink. Yet, that understanding was based primarily on observations made from ships that steer clear of the harshest weather in the Southern Ocean, leaving winter months under sampled.”

Now with the help of a single Saildrone mission concrete data can help plan for the global warming issues of carbon dioxide emissions.  Another organization involved in the mission was the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS).  Co-chair of SOOS Sebastian Swart said, “One of our largest blind spots in terms of our climate knowledge and its future prediction lies in the Southern Ocean. This is mostly due to the serious lack of observations, in particular in winter, in this remote and harsh environment. This leads to a poor understanding of how these polar oceans function.  These exciting, high-resolution observations from Saildrone during its circumnavigation of the Antarctic provide valuable ground-based data-sets for scientists to understand the Southern Ocean better and evaluate the models we use to predict weather and climate.”

The NOAA and Saildrone have already launched several more missions around the world.  The NOAA and Saildrone have been working together since 2016.  Some of their other missions include exploring the equator and tropics to get a better understanding of El Niño systems.  Saildrone is currently working to build a fleet of up to 1,000 Saildrones in anticipation of further work with the NOAA and other private and government organizations.