Floating new technology

By Graham Davis

Launching Blue Link at the Maritime Museum L to R Dr Andreas Schiller, CMDR Craig Roy, Mr Rick Bailey, Dr Sharman Stone and Dr Neville Smith

Photo: POPH Bill McBride.

They are about two metres long, painted bright orange and are called Argo floats.

They are one of the lynchpins of “Blue Link”, a $15 million initiative formally launched in Sydney in October.

There are only 30 drifting in waters around Australia, yet by 2005 it is hoped there will be another 270, many of them controlled by Australia.

The floats, along with some other initiatives, could help the Navy do its job better, help make our oceans safer for those who use them and could mean larger catches for our fishermen.

Costing $25,000 each, the floats drift for nine days deep beneath the waves collecting data on temperature and water density levels.

On the 10th day a battery pack changes the density of the cylinder and it bobs to the surface where it transmits its stored data to a satellite.

Job completed, it then descends to repeat the process. After about four years of producing data the batteries expire and the float sinks “dead” to the seabed.

There are three partners in the project, the Navy, the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.

Dr Sharman Stone, Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment and Heritage launched the initiative at the Maritime Museum in Sydney. Blue Link will provide forecasts of what is happening at or near the ocean surface and in the upper two kilometres of the ocean.

“It will provide forecasts of the ocean similar to the land-based weather forecasting Australians have enjoyed for the past 40 years,” Dr Stone said.

“Ocean charts, including shipping charts for ocean currents, eddy locations and ocean temperatures, will be similar to those generated for the weather.”

.