LA JOLLA, Calif. — A $53 million federal grant will enable Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other organizations to build a fleet of robotic sensors to monitor conditions in oceans around the world.
The National Science Foundation grant, announced last month, will fund development of 500 ocean-monitoring floats. Five top national research institutions, including Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, University of Washington, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Princeton University, will team up to build and deploy the devices.
The robotic fleet will survey water from the surface to a depth of about 2,000 meters — more than a mile deep. They will continuously collect data that scientists use to observe ocean ecosystems and monitor elemental cycles of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen in the ocean.
The floats will also…
