Scientists team up with commercial shippers to collect observations in the Caribbean Sea

Crewmembers deploy an Argo float from M/V Bulk Xaymaca. Credit: Vyacheslav Martyanov

Five autonomous profiling floats were deployed from a commercial vessel into the depths of the Caribbean Sea to improve ocean and hurricane research.

Captain Vassili Pugatsov and the crew of the M/V Bulk Xaymaca, in cooperation with the Argo Float Group at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, deployed these ocean observing instruments, known as Argo floats, in early August during a southbound transit from Louisiana to Jamaica. The floats will add to the global Argo array and enhance key ocean measurements in a region critical for accurate hurricane forecasting. The M/V Bulk Xaymaca is a 225-meter-long dry bulk carrier owned by Pangaea Logistics Solutions and operated by Seamar Management S.A.

Argo floats are one of the key tools scientists use to collect ocean information, particularly in remote areas. Argo floats are robotic and dive 2,000 meters, or 1.2 miles below the sea surface, capturing temperature, pressure and salinity data that is transmitted to satellites upon their return to the surface every 10 days. In each of these cycles, a profile snapshot of ocean conditions is collected and made available to researchers globally within hours. Ocean observations and data collected from the Argo array are routinely used in climate reports such as the IPCC and serve as one of the foundational methods for measuring ocean heat.