This time last year I was sailing across the Great Australian Bight (the area of ocean below Australia) on the Southern Surveyor (check it out here, here and here). One cold and windy night, myself and several other scientists scrambled out onto the deck with an expensive, large, yellow, plastic float. We released it over the side of the boat and watched it as it disappeared into the night. As one of 5000 floats that scientists have released over board, it provides a way for us to continually monitor the oceans and send the data back to scientists on a regular basis via satellite. Here is a video which gives an overview of how Argo floats measure the ocean.

Exactly one year on, I’m happy to say the float is still floating! This float has spent 365 days of floating in the sea, drifting with the currents, being caught in eddies and taking observations of the ocean. Within that time it has travelled over 1845 kilometres around the Great Australian Bight.

It has surfaced 37 times (represented by the white dots on the following map) to transmit salinity, temperature and density data back to scientists via satellite.

Both maps are screen shots of Google Earth (red line represents 100 km) with Argo Data from here and the yellow star represents the launch location.

Temperature Profile

The temperature profile is typical of the ocean thermocline, with a decrease in temperature as depth (sea water pressure) increases. It was warmer over the summer months at the surface but only reached a maximum temperature of 18ºC.

Salinity Profile

The white patch between 24/6/2013 and 10/9/2013 indicates a lack of data as the Argo float was in the shallower waters  over the continental slope.

Temperature and salinity data for float WMO 5904242 was retrieved from Coriolis Operational Oceanography.

I will continue to provide updates on the adventures of this Argo float and hope it stays a float for many more years!