Float like a buoy, sing like a cetacean
Recent innovations in data-collecting instrument floats have revolutionized ocean sciences. Over the past ten years more than 3000 such floats have been placed by ocean researchers throughout the marine world. These flexible, powerful, and relatively cheap devices provide a critical link in the data chain vital to understanding the complex interactions of the ocean system. Recently a new effort was launched to enhance the fleet of data floats operating in the Southern Ocean. These new floats have expanded our ability to collect biogeochemical data that researchers will need to unlock the complexities of the connection between all s oceans and the Earth’s changing climate.
In this lesson students will use the new data coming from these floats to make observations about currents in the Southern Ocean, and will interpret some of the data sets available to infer relationships between chlorophyll and oxygen in the ocean.
Authors: Marc Rubinstein; EARTH 2016
Lesson Resources
- Lesson Plan
- Longitude/latitude Summary Chart for 30 floats
- Sample of plotted float drift
- Antarctica Base Map from Discovering Antarctica
