THE oceans are the driving force behind everything from hurricanes to El
Niño—yet there’s no global system to monitor them. But now
scientists in the US have received $9 million from the government to set
up Argo, a network of 3000 buoys that will make global ocean forecasting
possible for the first time.
In every cycle a buoy will sink to 2000 metres, drift for about 12 days, and
then rise back to the surface to beam readings of temperature, salinity and
currents to monitoring stations via satellite. Breck Owens, an Argo participant
from the Woods Hole Oceanographic…
