hays-animalborne-2005.pdf (4.2 MB)
Animal-borne sensors successfully capture the real-time thermal properties of ocean basins
journal contribution
posted on 2005-09-01, 00:00 authored by C McMahon, E Autret, J Houghton, P Lovell, A Myers, Graeme HaysGraeme HaysClimate change is perhaps the most pressing and urgent environmental issue facing the world today. However our ability to predict and quantify the consequences of this change is severely limited by the paucity of in situ oceanographic measurements. Marine animals equipped with sophisticated oceanographic data loggers to study their behavior offer one solution to this problem because marine animals range widely across the world’s ocean basins and visit remote and often inaccessible locations. However, unlike the information being collected from conventional oceanographic sensing equipment, which has been validated, the data collected from instruments deployed on marine animals over long periods has not. This is the first long-term study to validate in situ oceanographic data collected by animal oceanographers. We compared the ocean temperatures collected by leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) in the Atlantic Ocean with the ARGO network of ocean floats and could find no systematic errors that could be ascribed to sensor instability. Animal-borne sensors allowed water temperature to be monitored across a range of depths, over entire ocean basins, and, importantly, over long periods and so will play a key role in assessing global climate change through improved monitoring of global temperatures. This finding is especially pertinent given recent international calls for the development and implementation of a comprehensive Earth observation system (see http://iwgeo.ssc.nasa.gov/documents.asp?s=review) that includes the use of novel techniques for monitoring and understanding ocean and climate interactions to address strategic environmental and societal needs.
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Journal
Limnology and oceanography : methodsVolume
3Pagination
392 - 398Publisher
American Society of Limnology and OceanographyLocation
Waco, Tex.ISSN
0024-3590eISSN
1541-5856Language
engPublication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalCopyright notice
2005, American Society of Limnology and OceanographyUsage metrics
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