The mysteries of the open ocean -- from the shape of eddies to the movement of currents -- should become a bit more understandable in the weeks ahead as a research ship from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography uses sound to analyze the physical properties of the deep blue sea.
The R/V Roger Revelle is scheduled to leave port in Taiwan Thursday for a distant, isolated area where scientists will place an instrument in the water that emits sound. The sound waves refract off such things as eddies and currents, enabling researchers to create an image of the ocean's components, says Bruce Appelgate, associate director of SIO in La Jolla.
The sound waves also can reveal a lot about the temperature and salinity of various regions of the ocean, adding to science's understanding of the ocean's structure, and how it changes over time.
The research will be conducted from the Revelle, a 277-foot long vessel that was built in 1996. Revelle is owned by the Navy but operated by SIO and bears the name of the late Roger Revelle of SIO, one of the first scientists to broadly study and explain global warming. Click here to follow the Revelle's location at sea.