Catalogue of glider research projects and initiatives
Catalogue of glider research projects and initiatives
One could only witness the growing glider activity throughout the world since the pioneer deployments in the late 1990s. Worth mentioning are an impressive glider fleet demonstration which was carried out in 2003 in the framework of the experiment Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network (AOSN) II and several endurance lines that started to be maintained on both the West and East coasts of the USA. This activity has been growing in the USA since then, and in particular recently, in the framework of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). In 2004, in parallel to the development of the glider activity in the USA, the first European glider experiments were carried out in the framework of the European project MFSTEP of the Fifth Framework Programme (FP5). Later, the European FP6 project MERSEA in 2006-2009, and later, several FP7 projects, as well as, several national past and on-going projects, (have) support(ed) glider operations in European and foreign waters. In the mean time, Australia has developed the ANFOG infrastructure to operate gliders in a sustained way.
Among all the glider projects, there were 2 EU projects in particular, that were strongly related to the EGO community development, trying to develop a holistic approach for gliders to be integrated in the global ocean observing system:
- EU FP7 GROOM: Gliders for research Ocean Observation & Management. See the Public GROOM delivelables and in particular the GROOM final report.

AlterEco
An Alternative Framework to Assess Marine Ecosystem Functioning in Shelf Seas
Arctic Prize
Arctic Productivity in the Seasonal Ice Zone
AWA
Ecosystem Approach to the management of fisheries and the marine environment in West African waters
BB-Trans
3D transport Bay of Biscay
BoBBLE
Bay of Bengal Boundary Layer Experiment
Bothnian Sea water exchange
Bothnian Sea water exchange
Bremer
EP2 - Surveying marine life in the canyons off Bremer Bay
CANALES
Canales Endurance Line
CINEL
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
COCONET
Towards COast to COast NETworks of marine protected areas
CONVEX
Marine Autonomus and Robotic Systems
COSYNA
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
CYCOFOS
Cyprus Coastal Ocean Forecasting and Observing System
DOCONUG
Deep ocean convection: observations from an adaptive network of underwater gliders
EEL
Extended Ellett Line
ESTOC
Australian National Facility for Ocean Gliders
EU H2020 AtlantOS
Optimising and Enhancing the Integrated Atlantic Ocean Observing Systems
EU H2020 BRIDGES
Bringing together Research and Industry for the Development of Glider Environmental Services
EU H2020 ENVRI+
Bringing together Environmental and Earth System Research infrastructures
EUREC4A
EUREC4A
FASTNEt
Fluxes Across Sloping Topography of the North East Atlantic
GAB
Great Australian Bay
GINA
Gliders in the Agulhas
iFADO
Innovation in the Framework of the Atlantic Deep Ocean
IntarOS
Integrated Arctic Observation System
JERICO TNA
JERICO Transnational Access
KUGON
Kyungpook National University
LIVINGSTONE
Etude des échanges côte-large et de leur variabilité par l'intermédiaire d'un réseau de planeurs sous-marins (gliders) : application au Golfe du Lion
Lofoten Bassin
Alseamar-ALCEN
LOGMEC
Long-Term Glider Mission for Environmental Characterization
MASSMO
Marine Autonomous Systems in Support of Marine Observations
MATUGLI
Mesures Autonomes de la Turbidité côtière à l\'aide de GLIders
MEDREP
British Atlantic Survey
MERSEA
Marine Environment and security for the European Area
MFSTEP
Mediterranean Forecasting System Towards Environmental Predictions
MISTRALS
Mediterranean Integrated STudies at Regional And Local Scales
MOOSE
Mediterranean Ocean Observing System for the Environment
MOSES II
Modular Observation Solutions for Earth Systems
NREP
Nordic Recognized Environmental Picture
OCS_S Rockall Trough
Ocean Climate Survey_S Rockall Trough
ODYSSEA
ODYSSEA H2020 Glider program
OSMOSIS
Ocean Surface Mixing, Ocean Sub-mesoscale Interaction Study
OSNAP
Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Programm
PERSEUS
Policy-oriented marine Environmental Research for the Southern European Seas
PLOCAN GliderSchool
PLOCAN GliderSchool
PREFACE
Enhancing prediction of tropical Atlantic climate and its impacts
Projeto Azul
Projeto Azul
ProVoLo
Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS)
RidgeMix
RidgeMix
RITMARE
Oregon State University, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
SACUS
Southwest African Coastal Upwelling System and Benguela Ninos
SPICE
Southwest Pacific Ocean and Climate Circulation Experiment
SSB
Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry
Svinoy
Monitoring the Atlantic inflow through Svinøy Section
TasEastCoast
Tasmania East Coast
TwoRocks
UK-IMON
Integrated Marine Observing Network
VOCALS
VAMOS Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study Regional Experiment
LIVINGSTONE
Les objectifs de LIVINSTONE sont d\\\'étudier les échanges entre les eaux côtières et celle du large à travers le talus continental à l\\\'aide d\\\'un réseau de planeurs sous-marins (gliders) et de chercher à dimensionner au mieux les contraintes d\\\'utilisation de cette nouvelle plateforme instrumentale autonome de mesure in-situ.
MOOSE
MOOSE combines eulerian observatories and autonomous mobile platforms to enlarge and enhance the Mediterranean observation: * to observe the long-term evolution of the NW Mediterranean Sea in the context of the climate change and anthropogenic pressures * to detect and identify long-term environmental anomalies * to build efficient indicators of the health of the NW Mediterranean basin
PERSEUS
PERSEUS is a research project that assesses the dual impact of human activity and natural pressures on the Mediterranean and Black Seas. PERSEUS merges natural and socio-economic sciences to predict the long-term effects of these pressures on marine ecosystems. The project aims to design an effective and innovative research governance framework, which will provide the basis for policymakers to turn back the tide on marine life degradation.
JERICO TNA
The primary objective of the TNA activity (WP7) is to provide coordinated ‘free of charge’ trans-national access to researchers or research teams from academy and industry to original coastal infrastructures operated by the JERICO NEXT consortium. This access opportunity is expected to help building long-term collaborations between users and JERICO-NEXT partners, and to promote innovation and transfer of know-how in the coastal marine sector.
MISTRALS
“A decade to observe and understand, predict the habitability over a century” MISTRALS (Mediterranean Integrated STudies at Regional And Local Scales) is a decennial program for systematic observations and research dedicated to the understanding of the Mediterranean Basin environmental process under the planet global change. It aims to coordinate, across the Mediterranean Basin, interdisciplinary research on atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and paleo-climate, including environmental ecology and social sciences. The objective is to achieve a better understanding of the mechanisms shaping and influencing landscape, environment and human impact of this eco-region. Thus, its aim is to anticipate the behaviour of this system over a century, from an interdisciplinary analysis conducted over the 2010-2020 decade. The ultimate goal of this program is to predict the evolution of habitable conditions in this large ecosystem, to meet the public policies concerning resources and environment, to anticipate evolution of the societies and to propose policies and adaptative measures that would optimize them.
IntarOS
Stein Sandven (stein.sandven@nersc.no) is the project PI. Maire Noelle Houssais and Christophe Herbault are in charge of the glider deployments in the project. The overall objective is to build an efficient integrated Arctic Observation System (iAOS) by extending, improving and unifying existing systems in the different regions of the Arctic.
CONVEX
National Oceanography Centre Joseph Proudman Building 6 Brownlow Street Liverpool L3 5DA United Kingdom
EEL
Flow in the eastern subpolar North Atlantic is an important component of the global thermohaline circulation and thus has an important role in regulating climate. Around 90 % of the upper ocean inflow to the Nordic Seas passes between Iceland and Scotland, whilst ~50 % of the cold dense outflow returns through the same area. The Extended Ellett Line (EEL) is a standard hydrographic section between Scotland and Iceland designed to monitor these critical flows. The Extended Ellett Line was started in 1975 by Dave Ellett, a physical oceanographer at SAMS. Until 1996 effort focused on the Rockall Trough portion of the section often with several occupations each year. Since 1996 the section has been extended to Iceland with regular measurement of nutrients and oxygen in addition to temperature and salinity. Although the predominant aim of the Extended Ellett Line is to monitor the physical and chemical oceanography of the region, the annual cruises provide a platform for additional science as well as training for the next generation of marine scientists and engineers. Whilst research cruises enable a wide range of parameters to be measured, they are naturally biased towards the summer months when the weather in the region tends to be better. To address this, SAMS has been using an autonomous Seaglider to sample along the Extended Ellett Line transect during the under-sampled autumn, winter and spring months. This provides valuable data to supplement that obtained from the annual cruises.
AWA
Ecosystem Approach to the management of fisheries and the marine environment in West African waters. (AWA) is a cooperative project with partners from Senegal, France, Germany, Cape Verde, and other West African countries (see webpage: AWA homepage) that started in January 2013. PI - Patrice Brehmer IRD, UMR Lemar, BP 70, Campus Ifremer, 29280 Plouzané
OSNAP
OSNAP is an international program designed to provide a continuous record of the full-water column, trans-basin fluxes of heat, mass and freshwater in the subpolar North Atlantic.
BoBBLE
We aim to better understand how heat and salt is transported from the Arabian Sea, how this water mixes with the freshwater from the river input in the northern Bay of Bengal, and how these processes influence the monsoon.
FASTNEt
The Fluxes Across Sloping Topography of the North East Atlantic (FASTNEt) consortium aims to improve current understanding of exchange processes taking place at ocean–shelf boundaries. A combination of novel observational strategies and modelling techniques will focus on the shelf edge, west of the UK, as part of a four year scientific study
ESTOC
Ocean Gliders Facility, Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), 35 Stirling Highway, 6009, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia
ODYSSEA
ODYSSEA will develop, operate and demonstrate an interoperable and cost-effective platform that fully integrates networks of observing and forecasting systems across the Mediterranean basin, addressing both the open sea and the coastal zone.
MASSMO
The mission will comprise a range of oceanographic data collection, but with a particular focus on passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals and oceanographic features. MASSMO4 will be co-ordinated by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), with research partners including University of East Anglia (UEA), Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML). The mission will be sponsored by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and will involve close co-operation with the NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) and UK Royal Navy, and will be supported by several additional commercial, government and research partners. David Smeed and Justin Buck are the MASSMO contact point for glider observation.
CYCOFOS
The Cyprus Coastal Ocean Forecasting and Observing System (CYCOFOS) is a sub-regional forecasting and observing system in the Eastern Mediterranean Levantine Basin, which covers the coastal and open sea areas of Cyprus, Cilician and Lattakian basins and the Eastern Levantine Base.
COSYNA
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is the world's largest private, non-profit oceanographic research institution and a global leader in the study and exploration of the ocean.
EUREC4A
EUREC4A aims at advancing understanding of the interplay between clouds, convection and circulation and their role in climate change: How resilient or sensitive is the shallow cumulus cloud amount to variations in the strength of convective mixing, surface turbulence and large-scale circulations? How do the radiative effects of water vapor and clouds influence shallow circulations and convection? To what extent do mesoscale patterns of convective organization condition the response of clouds to perturbations? And what are the implications of all of the above for how clouds respond to warming?
Svinoy
The Norwegian Atlantic Current (NwAC) through the Norwegian Sea is a poleward extension of the Gulf Stream and serves as a conduit of warm and saline water from the North Atlantic to the Arctic Ocean. A change of this transport may cause dramatic climatic-related changes, such as reduction of the Arctic sea ice cover and ecological disruptions. Quantifying and understanding the variability of the transport within and between these regions is thus important for our understanding of the climate system, both in Northern Europe and the Arctic. The Svinøy section (SS) cuts through the entire Atlantic inflow just to the north of the Scotland-Iceland Ridge and is as such a suitable place to undertake a comprehensive monitoring of the NwAC, as up-stream reference for the Arctic Ocean - PI - Kjell Arild Orvik
Bothnian Sea water exchange
The Bothnian Sea water exchange is the first cooperative mission with two gliders \'Uivelo\' of FMI and a similar Slocum glider \'Mia\' of MSI/TUT, Tallinn. Both gliders measured the deep area south of Lågskär island. Water exchange between the Baltic Sea Proper and the Gulf of Bothnia are studied. The Gulf of Bothnia is connected to the Baltic Proper through the narrow and deep Åland Sea and through the mostly shallow Archipelago Sea. The deep water of the Bothnian Sea is ventilated by the surface layer waters from the Baltic Proper. Distribution of water masses in the Southern Bothnian Sea will be observed with glider. In the same time FMI runs an intensive Argo float mission in the Bothnian Sea to the North of the glider location (ca. 61°24\'N)
NREP
The NREP17 (Nordic Recognized Environmental Picture 2017) is in support of the Environmental Knowledge and Operational Effectiveness (EKOE) program outlined in the Project Management Plan (PMP) of CMRE for project SAC000706 funded by Allied Command Transformation (ACT)
AlterEco
Continental shelf seas are typically less than 200 m deep and can be described by the shallow ocean surrounding continental land masses. Due to their accessibility, shelf seas are commercially and economically important, with oil and gas extraction alone in UK shelf seas valued at £37B pa. Despite occupying only 7% of the surface ocean, shelf seas also play a major role in the global carbon cycle and marine ecosystem. Shelf seas are 3-4 times more productive than open-ocean, are estimated to support more than 40% of carbon sequestration and support 90% of global fish catches providing a critical food source for growing coastal populations. However, shelf seas are also exposed to climate driven and anthropogenic stress that could have a profound impact on their biological productivity, oxygen dynamics and ecosystem function. Many processes contributing to this threat are related to regions that undergo vertical stratification. This process occurs when the bottom layer of shelf seas becomes detached from the atmospherically ventilated near surface layer. In temperate shelf seas stratification predominantly occurs as solar heating outcompetes the tide and wind-driven mixing to produce a warm surface layer, resulting in seasonal stratification over large areas of the NW European shelf seas. A combination of physical detachment from the surface and increased biological oxygen consumption in the bottom layer, accentuated by the enhanced productivity that stratification also supports in the upper ocean, can result in a drastically reduced bottom layer oxygen concentration. When oxygen levels get so low, they are classified as being oxygen deficient and this can be problematic for benthic and pelagic marine organisms and have a detrimental effect on ecosystem function.
PLOCAN GliderSchool
Each Year PLOCAN, Gran Canarias Island, is organizing a glider school to teach new glider users how to handle the technology. Deployments occurs during the week.
MATUGLI
This project addresses a key question concerning the coastal marine environment: the characterization of the turbidity as an index of water clarity in coastal waters at various spatial and temporal scales. Turbidity is investigated as a proxy of the concentration of suspended particles and its characteristics (size, shape and nature). Turbidity is also a key parameter in coastal areas to estimate the quality of suspended particles (sediment, organics and contaminants) and its transfer from source (continent) to sink (sea). There are few recurrent turbidity observations in the coastal waters, and none deals with the entire water column at large spatio-temporal scales. The only regular spatial observation of turbidity comes from satellite derived ocean color data and only allow assessment on the surface turbidity. This project aims at assessing a novel way to measure turbidity, as well as suspended particle transport throughout the water column and the shelf. It also aims at investigating the spatial scales of turbidity variability, from few meters to several tens of kilometres (i.e., continental shelves), and the temporal scales from minutes to days. The strategy is twofold: firstly, the validation of optical and acoustic sensors available on the market on existing fixed coastal platforms, and secondly a cross-calibration/validation towards mobile platforms with similar sensors such as autonomous underwater gliders. Coastal gliders are available and operated by the French Technical Division in La Seyne-sur-Mer in coordination with scientists. We experienced several deployments in the Mediterranean Sea in the past few years (see EGO website www.ego-network.org/). Recently the EC2CO TUCPA project successfully deployed gliders in the T�t and Rh�ne coastal area, providing innovative measurements of turbidity up to shallow water (30 m deep) areas. However, French gliders are presently under-equipped to measure suspended particles concentration and transport, and there is a need to upgrade them with state of the art turbidity and velocity sensors. An assessment on existing optical and acoustic turbidity sensors on fixed platforms will be done during the first phase of the project to determine the most suitable one for the quantification of suspended sediment concentration in the coastal area. From both lab and in-situ experiments, a comparison of optical and acoustic measurements, at various wavelengths and frequencies will be conducted to compare the response of these sensors to various suspended particles concentrations, natures and sizes. Then, in situ experiments will be conducted in two pilot sites in the Gulf of Lions shelf to test the instrumental packages versus natural suspended particles and concentration gradients. The POEM buoy operated by the CEFREM in front of the coastal T�t River on the Roussillon coast, is located in an area characterized by low to medium turbidity (~1 � 10 mg L-1). The MESURHO buoy managed by IFREMER in front of the Rh�ne River mouth is located in an area characterized by values of medium to high turbidity (~10 � 100 mg L-1). After the laboratory and in-situ validation of the turbidity sensors, similar sensors adapted to gliders and available on the market will be added to the instrumental payload on one glider and tested on sections crossing the Gulf of Lion shelf. The measurements will be focused on the winter period when strong gradients of turbidity occur especially during extreme Mediterranean events such as storms and flash-floods. The observations will be used (i) to assess satellite estimates of surface suspended particle concentrations and (ii) to validate the modelling of suspended sediment transport.
CVOO
The recent discovery of isolated low oxygen (O2) watermasses in the generally well ventilated open ocean region near the Cape Verde Archipelago changed our understanding of oceanic processes in this area. The eastern tropical North Atlantic (ETNA) is characterized by a highly productive coastal upwelling system off northwest Africa, enhanced Saharan dust deposition, and a moderate O2 minimumzone (OMZ) with lowest O2 concentrations just under 40 µmol kg-1. Current understanding is that the ETNA OMZ has been expanding over the past decades both in terms of vertical extent and intensity. Nevertheless, the recently observed exceptionally low O2 concentrations just below the mixed layer ranging from hypoxic (<20 µmol kg-1) to even anoxic (<1 µmol kg-1) conditions have never been reported before for the ETNA. These O2 depleted isolated watermasses were attributed to mesoscale eddies which originated in the highly productive coastal Mauritanian upwelling and propagated westwards. Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler observations at the Cape Verde Ocean Observatory (CVOO) suggest that zooplankton and nekton diurnal vertical migration (DVM) was inhibited for 3 weeks due to the presence of subsurface anoxia in the core of the eddy. Mesoscale eddies are being recognized as biogeochemical hot-spots of up to basin-wide relevance for the worlds oceans. The glider be used to search for such a low oxygen eddy to guide a research vessel for further measurements.
OSMOSIS
The OSMOSIS project aims to improve our understanding of what\\\'s going on beneath the ocean waves. We want to share with you why we\\\'ve undertaken this task, what we\\\'re looking for and how we\\\'re going about it.
UK-IMON
The purpose of the UK Integrated Marine Observing Network (UK-IMON) is to draw together existing UK marine observatories and observing programmes in order to create new knowledge and better evidence by making best use of all marine data. PI : Jon Rees, jon.rees@cefas.co.uk.
RidgeMix
The Ridgemix project takes as its key hypothesis that the mixing generated by the internal tide over steep oce an seabed topography, such as mid ocean ridges, plays an important role in the biogeochemistry of the ocean
SSB
The Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry (SSB) programme aims to reduce uncertainty in our process understanding of the cycling of nutrients and carbon, and the controls on primary and secondary production in both the UK and NW European shelf seas, and in wider global biogeochemical cycle PI : Dr Mike Webb Project scientific steering committee chair Natural Environment Research Council, Head Office Email : mweb@nerc.ac.uk
Arctic Prize
The Arctic PRIZE project addresses the core objective of the NERC Changing Arctic Ocean Program by seeking to understand and predict how change in sea ice and ocean properties will affect the large-scale ecosystem structure of the Arctic Ocean. PI : Finlo.Cottier@sams.ac.uk
GINA
Off the east coast of South Africa, robotic ocean gliders deployed in the Agulhas Current capture new data that help us better understand how energy dissipates in the ocean. PI: M. Krug (mkrug@csir.co.za); co-PI: S. Swart & J. Hermes
PREFACE
The gliders mission is related to the PREFACE project \"Enhancing prediction of tropical Atlantic climate and its impacts\" (http://preface.b.uib.no) funded by the European Union within the 7th Framework programme. PREFACE is combining European and African expertise in observations, modelling, and marine ecosystems to improve our understanding and capabilities to predict Tropical Atlantic climate and its impacts. Project Officer : Noel Keenlyside Noel.Keenlyside@uib.no Tel. ++47 55 58 20 32
SACUS
Project coordinator : Dr. Volker Mohrholz These gliders are deployed from R/V METEOR cruise M148. They carry turbulence and Nitrate probes in addtion to the regular sensors. The project is funded by the BMBF-SPACES program. The observations are part of subproject 1 (SP1): Connectivity of the southeast Atlantic coastal upwelling system to the equatorial current system. The goal of the subproject SP1 is to investigate the variability of the eastern boundary current of the South Atlantic, i.e. the Angola Current, and its impact on SST and upwelling productivity. The main focus is on the forcing of current and water mass variability in the SACUS region by wave propagation from the equatorial region and by local wind stress and wind stress curl variability. The study is based on a mooring array at 11°S, a location that represents the northern boundary condition for the Benguela upwelling region.
BB-Trans
Three-dimensional circulation and transport within the south-eastern Bay of Biscay from a multi-platform approximation
Cairns
IMOS glider missions in the Cairns Area, across and along the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
Portland
IMOS glider missions in the in the vincinity of Portland Harbor, Victoria, Australia, Pacific Ocean.
Cooktown
IMOS glider missions in the Cooktown are, along and across the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
Challenger
Teledyne Glider mission across the globe. Aiming to demonstrate the capability of Slocum Gliders to cross long distance.
Projeto Azul
Project Azul is a cooperation between SHELL Brasil, the Laboratory of Computational Methods in Engineering (LAMCE) COPPE / UFRJ\\\'s and PROOCEANO, a Brazilian oceanographic technology company, for the development of an ocean observation and forecasting system for the Santos Basin. Being the region that concentrates the main discoveries in the pre-salt, the understanding of the ocean dynamics is essential for structures dimensioning, the planning of activities and for the safety of offshore operations.
MOSES II
MOSES (Modular Observation Solutions for Earth Systems) is a research initiative comprising nine Helmholtz research centres that are part of the research area “Earth and the Environment”. The joint project MOSES is coordinated at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig. In MOSES, a mobile and flexible operational measurement system is under development that is designed to measure high-dynamic events, such as heavy rain and flooding or heat waves and droughts.
COCONET
Towards COast to COast NETworks of marine protected areas (from the shore to the high and deep sea), coupled with sea-based wind energy potential. COCONET identifies groups of putatively interconnected MPAs in the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, shifting from local (single MPA) to regional (Networks of MPAs) and basin (network of networks) scales. The project is meant to enhance policies of effective environmental management, also to ascertain if the existing MPAs are sufficient for ecological networking and to suggest how to design further protection schemes based on effective exchanges between protected areas. The coastal focus is widened to off shore and deep sea habitats, comprising them in MPAs Networks. These activities will also individuate areas where Offshore Wind Farms might become established, avoiding too sensitive habitats but acting as stepping stones through MPAs. The Seaglider Amerigo was deployed on May 15 and recovered on May 21, 2013. The area sampled during the mission covered the South Adriatic pit and the slope close to the Italian coast. In this experiment the OGS pilot team had the opportunity to trim the newly acquired glider fine-tuning the navigation parameters.
