News 2018: Underwater robot gathers valuable ocean data

It’s the height of hurricane season. And SMAST researchers have deployed the underwater vehicle, Glider Blue, to capture ocean data that assists scientists in better understanding the dynamics that affect ocean habitats

Dr. Wendell Brown, Professor of Oceanography at UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science & Technology, and his research team Richard Arena and Kate Tremblay have deployed ocean glider Blue west of Martha’s Vineyard. For the next three months, the underwater robot will sample the ocean along part of the Southern New England Bight region south of Martha’s Vineyard. When deployed, Blue runs programmed routes south of New England, capturing ocean data that assists scientists in better understanding the dynamics that affect ocean habitats.

This year, a series of glider missions have been planned, guided by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS) Glider Technical Center in collaboration with researchers at UMass Dartmouth and Rutgers University, to support MARACOOS’s fleet of ocean glider deployments as part of a 2018 Hurricane Patrol.