Marine Scientists Using Commercial Ships for Data

Ocean scientists are enlisting cargo and cruise ships to measure water temperatures, ocean currents, and even the height of clouds, as the vessels operate in their trade routes.

"They're going to change our view over the next few years of the way the ocean actually looks," said Peter Ortner, Chief Scientist with the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The long-term data that commercial ships can furnish are what has been historically difficult to obtain, said Thomas Rossby, Professor at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography.

"Presently, we basically depend on archived historical data to make inferences about change over a long time. ... You're hostage to the limited amount of data available in the past," Rossby said.

These volunteer programs are also cheaper, considering the cost of chartering a dedicated research vessel can be around $15,000 per day. Scientists spoke about the project last week at the bi-annual ocean sciences meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Instruments have been affixed this year to the "Norrona," a ferry doing roundtrips every week to Denmark, Scotland, and Iceland, to measure water temperatures flowing out of the Arctic seas into the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Scientists also have been using instruments attached to the cargo ship "Oleander" since 1992 to monitor the Gulf Stream as the vessel passes between Port Elizabeth, N.J., and Bermuda. And, the "Nuka Arctic" has been providing scientists information since 1999 about the Gulf Stream and its path between Denmark and Greenland.

With such information regularly collected over a long period of time, researchers hope not just to observe a particular change, but to gain an understanding of how the ocean behaves over time, Rossby said.

Royal Caribbean's "Explorer of the Seas" has been providing information to the University of Miami, whose personnel have been building oceanographic and atmospheric laboratories onboard for scientists and a science learning center for the passengers.

About 60,000 people have attended popular scientists' lectures on the ship, said Rod Zika, professor and chief scientist of the Explorer of the Seas Program at the University of Miami.

Michael Sheehan, spokesman for Royal Caribbean, said the program started out as a way to give back to the environment, but quickly grew to include participation by NOAA and NASA, as well as including a program for visiting researchers.