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 An international study led by the California Institute of
Technology used three yellow "gliders", about 2 meters (6 feet 6
inches) long and each costing $240,000, to measure temperature and
salinity in the depths of the Weddell Sea off Antarctica.
The measurements showed how vast eddies drive heat into shallower
waters around Antarctica, helping thaw coastal ice.
The findings, in the journal Nature Geoscience, back up theories
about how heat moves south and set benchmarks to track climate
change. The U.N. panel of climate scientists says both Greenland and
Antarctica are losing mass, raising sea levels.
"A revolution is underway in Antarctic data," Karen Heywood, a
co-author of the study at England's University of East Anglia, said
of how such battery-powered robots are raising the amount of data
collected and cutting costs.
 One of the three gliders got lost, but Heywood said it still worked
out cheaper than a similar trip in 2007 which required a ship
costing $30,000 a day, with many stops, to collect less data. Robot
gliders can be left for months, diving and surfacing with tiny
adjustments to buoyancy.
"We call them mechanical dolphins," she told Reuters of the gliders
made by Norway's Kongsberg. Other makers are U.S. Teledyne
Technologies and France's Alcen Group.
Elsewhere, about 3,600 free drifting "Argo floats" have been
deployed worldwide since 2000 to help monitor temperatures and
salinity in the seas. In the air, drones have also been used by
organizations such as NASA to monitor ice.
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Katharina Nygaard, of Kongsberg's subsea division, estimated the
firm had a quarter of a world market of 800 gliders. Demand "is
growing in the marine research world along with small but noticeable
uptake by defense and commercial operators," she said.
In the Arctic, gliders are tracking higher temperatures that are
driving fish stocks north. "We've moved from prototypes to the more
regular use of gliders in the last year," said Peter Haugan,
professor at the University of Bergen in Norway.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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