Our oceans are becoming extremely important: their warming, the
destruction of coral reefs, the oceans' salinity and acidity,
and ultimately, their ability to act as massive carbon sinks. Up
until now we have had surprisingly little information regarding
the state of our oceans, save for the pioneering work of
researchers and activists and the little funding they have
available. A fundamental shift in data collection, however, is
set to change as the Argo Program has just completed laying out
their network of 3,000 robotic sensors. The international
program, using 1.5m drifting floats that are disbursed around
the world's oceans, is currently in the finalizing stages of
setting up their data collection systems. These robotic floats
will drift over a period of 10 days, submerging themselves at a
depth of 1000m and finally to 2000m before they ascend and
transmit their data to a satellite, after which they will repeat
the process. Ultimately, the program hopes to gather over
100,000 data transmissions annually