Image above is from this site.
Have you been following any news about Boaty McBoatface? Ever since the boat was named, I’ve been sporadically keeping watch on it. And it’s been exciting. It has just gone on its first exploration expedition.
The oceans, rivers and big lakes of the world, have always held my imagination, along with the icy poles.
Even now — underwater things always gets my attention as does the Arctic and the Antarctic. Who does not want to go exploring? Likely, we all do.
Do we all live in a Yellow Submarine? No. But you have to admit it would be, well, it would be interesting.
Soon, some people will be working with one.
The yellow submarine, which I like to think of as a beast, has an odd name and it was selected on the internet, and the enthusiastic participation crashed the website, and likely taught many organizations to not let the public name ships valued at about $287 million (£200million):
A proposal by a British government agency to let the Internet suggest a name for a $287 million polar research ship probably seemed like a good idea at the time.
Even the person who originally submitted the name, expressed a sheepish, half-hearted regret for his initial proposal. But it was too late. The name stuck. And to smooth out any hurt feelings, the organization decided to attached name to the accompanying submarine, instead of to the exploration ship itself. And in an odd way, it actually fits the inanimate yellow faceless explorer. Here’s how the National Environmental Research Council (NERC) puts it:
It would have been a travesty to cast aside a name that had captured the imagination of so many people around the world. And so, at the NERC National Oceanography Centre, Autosub Long Range Boaty McBoatface was born. Cute though it sounds, this unmanned submarine is part of a fleet of some pretty intrepid explorers.
Yes. Indeed. The valiant yellow submarine explorer will be called Boaty McBoatface.
The submarine will be deployed on board the RSS Sir David Attenborough, polar explorer.
A worthy name to give an exploration ship, don’t you think? No doubt you’ve heard of him?
Sir David was there at the keel laying ceremony:
Attenborough launched the traditional maritime “keel-laying” process by commencing the first 100-tonne hull unit to be lifted to the construction berth by crane.
Speaking at the ceremony, he said it was an “honour” to be invited to the keel-laying ceremony.
“The Polar Regions are not only critical for understanding the natural world but they also have an enormous appeal for journalists, broadcasters and the public.
“I have had several opportunities to experience the power of these places first hand. This new ship will ensure that scientists have access to these enigmatic regions to uncover secrets that we can only imagine at this point. Scientists working on this new ship will inform everyone about our changing world for generations to come,” Attenborough added.
This ship, while the building of it is an employment enhancer, will also have capacity:
The vessel will have an overall length of 128m, a breath of 24m and a draft of 7m, and will weigh 15,000t. It will be capable of accommodating 30 crew members, including 60 scientists and technical support staff. Designed to operate in the Antarctica and the Arctic waters, the vessel will be capable of enduring up to 60 days in sea-ice.
In addition to serving as a research vessel, it will also supply the five UK research stations in the Antarctic, operated by NERC's British Antarctic Survey, with cargo and research equipment.
Approximately 900m³ of space will be reserved for carrying scientific cargo onboard the vessel. The vessel will incorporate a customised moon-pool open to both the deck level and at the hull, for easy deployment of airborne robots, onboard environmental monitoring systems, and robotic submarines and marine gliders.
Here’s an amazing link to the specs.
Look at how awesome it is!!
I did not want to cut and paste the other pics of the specs. I think it should be viewed in its entirety, on site, to get the true gist of the ship’s beauty and functionality.
It will have intelligent robotics with amplified remote driven capability to direct movements of these vehicles in polar regions. In fact, the ship and the submarine are built with an eye towards functioning in extreme environments. Furthermore, it will have strengthened communication abilities and will be able to deliver data in real time along with collaborative ability.
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But ships are polluting, CQ — you’re probably saying to yourself? Well, the builders thought and planned for that too:
Rolls Royce have designed the ship as a Polar Code 4 ice class, Lloyd’s Register classification, space for a total of 90 people, a large cargo capacity, long cruising
range and endurance, and the minimum risk of pollution.
The ship will buttress Arctic research during the summer season in the northern hemisphere, and will pursue research in the Antarctic during the austral summer season. In both instances it will also carry people and supplies to research station. This is a ship built to be at sea for 60 days with no support and has a hull which can break ice with thickness of up to 1m.
Here are some of ship’s features:
Technical features
- 128m long, 24m beam, 15,000gt
- Scientific cargo volume of approximately 900m
- Endurance – up to 60 days (Polar Regions)
- Range 19,000nm at 13 knots transit
- Ice breaking capability – up to 1m thick at 3 knots
- Launch and recovery of aerial and ocean robotic systems
- Crew approx. 30
- Accommodation for 60 scientists and support staff.
With all this capability and interest, where is Boaty McBoatface going right now?
The Orkney Passage —
Another image, as a comparison to the one above, for more clarity. As you can see, there’s submarine mountain ranges, the tops of some appear as islands.
It will have left Chile on March 17th to go to the Orkney Passage which is described :
by lead scientist Prof Alberto Naveira Garabato , from the University of Southampton as "a key choke-point to the flow of abyssal waters in which we expect the mechanism linking changing winds to abyssal water warming to operate."
The Orkney Passage is near Antarctica.
Boaty and its scientists, will be looking at the abyssal zone known as the Antarctic Bottom Water (AARB).
What is the Antarctic Bottom Water (AARB)? It is the densest water in the oceans. It is formed in the Weddell and Ross ice shelves as unfrozen seas within the ice pack — an ice hole — known as polynya.
This dense water flows downwards towards the continental margin. In turn, as it flows out, it causes major overturning of water with shifts in cold, and salinity, and it is a major driver of oceanic circulation and buoyancy, and can feed the Global Conveyor as it spreads northwards.
Along the way it encounters those mountain ranges imaged above. The conjecture is that dense waters flowing out and around those mountain ranges, form rapids, and that these, perhaps, are implicated in the deep ocean warming. To find out if it is so and how, will be one of Boaty McBoatface’s missions in that it will collect data while diving.
Given all that, you can understand why people want to study it, and also, why the Weddell and Ross ice shelves are so important to climate and oceanic health.
Oceanic chemistry is fascinating and complicated and I’m no oceanographer. So I will let Dr. Garabato and friends speak for their project — which is called Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow — which will be studying how the wind drives Antarctic Bottom Water changes:
This project will assess the dynamics of the outflow of Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW, water mass formed near Antarctica that integrates the deepest layers of the global ocean’s overturning circulation) at one of its key sites of export from the subpolar Southern Ocean: the Orkney Passage. The project focuses on this passage following recent evidence that it channels the single most voluminous outflow of AABW from the Antarctic subpolar seas, and that it may be centrally implicated in the climatic changes exhibited by AABW in the Atlantic Ocean. The project is exciting because the new way in which we propose to look at the Orkney Passage outflow promises to deliver significant advances in our conceptual understanding of abyssal ocean circulation and its sensitivity to climatic variations in forcing, against a backdrop of remarkably rapid and widespread changes in AABW properties observed to be ongoing over much of the global ocean. LINK
Please, do look at that link in the above quote.
The Yellow Submarine will be off loaded into the sea to travel the Orkney Passage, which is considered a choke point, where it will swim around in the abyssal waters sampling it’s strength of flow, and turbulence:
Today, scientists suspect that more heat is getting mixed into AABW from shallower, warmer ocean layers. This warmer water is getting delivered to the equator, and it could be affecting the planet’s climate. The Orkney Passage is likely a key chokepoint in this process, which is why the researchers are hoping to learn more about the speed of its streams, the degree of turbulence down below, and how deep sea waters are responding to changes in the winds over the Southern Ocean. Ultimately, the researchers would like to create models to help them predict how our climate will change during the 21st century and beyond. LINK.
Imagine, a submarine ship in a submarine valley — between the Weddell Sea and the Atlantic — looking for information. How exciting!
When there, in the Orkney Passage, Boaty McBoatface, the valiant Yellow Submarine, will move around in an ecosystem which is buried below ice.
It will be taught to read a map of the seabed. It will travel with sonar, collecting information. And it will be taught the skill to compare the map given to it with what it finds, and to note differences. It’s never been done before in this kind of situation.
This will definitely be a first.