technology

In March 2016 the Natural Environment Research Council launched a campaign to find a name for the UK’s next world-class polar research ship.

A fleet of ten marine robots has successfully completed an ambitious two-week mission off northwest Scotland, despite being hit by a succession of Atlantic storms with winds gusting up to 60 mph and waves up to 7 m high.

City-sized maps of terrain and life on the sea-floor have revealed that drifts of ‘marine snow’ on submarine hillsides act as a source of food to fuel a higher biomass of marine life on the hills than on the flatter plains surrounding hills.

An ambitious two-week mission involving ten marine robots has commenced off northwest Scotland. The third in a series of demonstrator missions, this latest phase sees the largest fleet of marine robotic vehicles simultaneously deployed in UK waters.

The world’s first autonomous robotic vessel to measure sea level completes a successful two week mission in the North Sea.

A research cruise this summer, led by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), will address the massive technical challenges in exploring for sea-floor mineral deposits.

A unique study recently published by scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and University College Cork shows that deep, cold-water corals are very slow to recover from damage. Therefore deep-water Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) protect vulnerable marine ecosystems most effectively when they are put in place before that damage occurs.

The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has entered into a two year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Marlan Maritime Technologies Ltd to develop innovative remote sensing services for the survey of intertidal zones.

The world’s first ‘real world’ deep-water controlled experiment simulating emission from a submerged carbon dioxide storage reservoir is to take place in the North Sea, with the aim of further verifying the safety of offshore carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture and storage (CCS).

The NOC is to form part of the new Centres of Excellence in Satellite applications, which is expected to aid economic growth in the Solent region. As part of this new centre the NOC will develop the technologies to help robot-subs use live satellite data to inform their route through the ocean, not unlike drivers using live traffic updates.