OceanScope: Exploring the Great Abyss and Its Properties

September 22, 2009 — Coral Gables — The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) have teamed up to establish the OceanScope Working Group, a way to bring science and industry together for the systematic study of the oceanic water column. Representatives from academia, ship owners and operators, naval architecture, government agencies and ocean technology companies gathered in Montreal, Canada last month to begin to develop a plan to systematically collect data that will allow us to better understand the ocean's interior dynamics and its impact on climate. OceanScope's overall objective is to establish a global network of ocean observation platforms on commercial ships. 'While there has been good coverage of the sea surface, we have very limited knowledge of the ocean's interior physical, chemical and biological properties. We really need high-resolution coverage of the oceans from the surface down?, said University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Professor Peter Ortner, one of the U.S members of the Working Group and a co-author of the proposal accepted by SCOR. For the past year Ortner and his colleagues have been retooling the University of Miami, NOAA and Royal Caribbean International's partnership aboard Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas cruise ship, the first-ever state-of-the-art oceanographic and atmospheric laboratory aboard a passenger cruise ship.