How scientists are studying the deep sea floor

Ins­ti­tut Poly­tech­nique de Paris (IP Paris) is in the pro­cess of crea­ting a new Inter­dis­ci­pli­na­ry Centre for the Stu­dy of Seas and Oceans (Centre Inter­dis­ci­pli­naire pour l’Etude des Mers et Océans, CIMO). This pro­ject is the result of the for­th­co­ming mer­ger of ENSTA Bre­tagne and ENSTA Paris, which gives the IP Paris an ocean cam­pus in Brest and signi­fi­cant poten­tial for marine and mari­time edu­ca­tion and research. Ocean obser­va­tion is one of CIMO’s key areas of research. Given the cli­mate and bio­di­ver­si­ty crises and the sus­tai­nable deve­lop­ment objec­tives, it is now of vital impor­tance to observe the oceans.

The Uni­ted Nations has laun­ched the “Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sus­tai­nable Deve­lop­ment” (2021–2030), led by UNESCO. And the Uni­ted Nations is orga­ni­sing the 3rd Uni­ted Nations Ocean’s Confe­rence (UNOC), which will take place in Nice next year. As engi­neers, IP Paris scien­tists can bring a fresh pers­pec­tive to research into the marine envi­ron­ment and mari­time acti­vi­ties, and the CIMO will be a mel­ting pot for this.

Ocean obser­va­tion tech­niques have pro­gres­sed consi­de­ra­bly in recent decades. While obser­va­tions have long been made from research, com­mer­cial or even plea­sure and racing ves­sels, it was satel­lite obser­va­tions in the 1970s that revo­lu­tio­ni­sed many aspects of land and ocean obser­va­tion. Today, in the age of robo­tics, sur­face obser­va­tions by satel­lites can tra­vel com­ple­te­ly auto­no­mous­ly from the sur­face to the sea­bed. Auto­no­mous sys­tems, and gli­ders in par­ti­cu­lar, have revo­lu­tio­ni­sed obser­va­tion of the marine envi­ron­ment. They are inex­pen­sive and can car­ry minia­tu­ri­sed scien­ti­fic sen­sors to depths of near­ly 6,000 metres. And they are spar­king a host of inno­va­tions in many fields.

To make the most of these small robots, which are deployed in large num­bers – there are cur­rent­ly 4,000 “Argo” pro­fi­lers (the sim­plest of these robots) – spe­cia­li­sed infra­struc­tures are needed.

In Europe, there are a num­ber of major Research Infra­struc­tures (RIs) dedi­ca­ted to dif­ferent sciences or major socie­tal issues, orga­ni­sed and lar­ge­ly fun­ded at a Euro­pean Union level. One of these, which eve­ryone has heard of, is CERN [Editor’s note : Euro­pean Orga­ni­za­tion for Nuclear Research]. Ano­ther is the Euro­pean Sou­thern Obser­va­to­ry (ESO) in Chile, a col­lec­tion of very large teles­copes. In the context of ocean obser­va­tion, the Hori­zon 2020 GROOM II pro­ject (Gli­ders for Research, Ocean Obser­va­tion and Mana­ge­ment Infra­struc­ture and Inno­va­tion) is deve­lo­ping a coor­di­na­ted Euro­pean RI to sup­port research and Ocean Obser­va­tion Sys­tems (OOSs) with auto­no­mous sys­tems capable of remai­ning auto­no­mous in the ocean for months or even years.

Over the past 20 years, Laurent Mor­tier, from ENSTA Paris, has devo­ted his career to set­ting up these types of RIs and OOSs. He is cur­rent­ly coor­di­na­tor of the Hori­zon Europe Advan­ced Marine Research Infra­struc­ture Toge­ther (AMRIT) pro­ject, after having coor­di­na­ted GROOM II, which has just come to an end. Europe is increa­sin­gly encou­ra­ging the inte­gra­tion of RIs and inno­va­tion, and in this res­pect auto­no­mous marine sys­tems and the GROOM II pro­po­sals will play a cor­ners­tone role in the future edi­fice of marine RIs. In par­ti­cu­lar, AMRIT will deve­lop stan­dards, best prac­tices and tools to ensure that obser­va­tion data can be opti­mal­ly inte­gra­ted into exis­ting and future cli­mate pre­dic­tion models, ser­ving the needs of research and the wider blue eco­no­my and society.

“One of the aims of AMRIT is to improve the ocean com­ponent of the Coper­ni­cus pro­gramme [Editor’s note : an EU pro­gramme that col­lects and reports data on the state of the Earth on a conti­nuous basis],” he explains. By obser­ving the ocean, which influences the cli­mate, models will be able to bet­ter pre­dict ocean dyna­mics, as well as wea­ther and cli­mate. “This is obvious­ly essen­tial for unders­tan­ding cli­mate change, but above all for pro­po­sing miti­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion mea­sures,” adds Laurent Mor­tier. Today, ocean fore­cas­ting and infor­ma­tion ser­vices are main­ly pro­vi­ded by the Coper­ni­cus Marine Ser­vice, mana­ged by Mer­ca­tor Ocean Inter­na­tio­nal in Tou­louse. This enti­ty was lar­ge­ly crea­ted by poly­tech­ni­cians from the French Navy’s Hydro­gra­phic and Ocea­no­gra­phic Ser­vice.

To this end, resear­chers have alrea­dy tur­ned to arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) tech­niques. Des­ti­na­tion Earth, a major pro­ject of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion and the Euro­pean Space Agen­cy, is deve­lo­ping a digi­tal twin of the Earth, with its ocean branch EDITO. These digi­tal twins are based on advan­ced models of the Earth sys­tem, which are then used to inte­grate more appli­ca­tive digi­tal twins. But to func­tion, these models and digi­tal twins need a regu­lar flow of obser­va­tions and data, cove­ring all phy­si­cal and living ele­ments, for example in extreme envi­ron­ments, at great depths or under the Arc­tic ice. “It’s an almost impos­sible task, unless you go in with auto­no­mous under­wa­ter sys­tems,” explains Laurent Mor­tier. “Robo­tics is one solu­tion, but it’s not easy to send robots under the ice and the ins­tru­ments they car­ry can get lost. These twins will prove use­ful in desi­gning the obser­va­tion sys­tems of the 21^st Century.”

“France has often been a pio­neer, and AI has been very use­ful in impro­ving the desi­gn of the SWOT satel­lite mis­sion to map ocean cur­rents from space at high reso­lu­tion” he adds. IP Paris could posi­tion itself in this field, as it has a num­ber of labo­ra­to­ries capable of taking on this type of work on much more com­plex pro­blems invol­ving a large num­ber of parameters.

“In addi­tion to Argo, the revo­lu­tio­na­ry obser­va­tion pro­gramme laun­ched in the 1990s, which is the cor­ners­tone of the Glo­bal Ocean Obser­ving Sys­tem (GOOS), we now need to inte­grate all the obser­va­tion sys­tems to ensure that these digi­tal twins are real­ly use­ful,” explains Laurent Mor­tier. “And GOOS wouldn’t real­ly exist without fun­ding from the US Natio­nal Ocea­nic and Atmos­phe­ric Admi­nis­tra­tion (NOAA). Europe doesn’t have the equi­va­lent of NOAA for the oceans. Agen­cies such as Ifre­mer, research bodies and uni­ver­si­ties are trying hard to coor­di­nate the Euro­pean com­ponent of GOOS, the Euro­pean Ocean Obser­ving Sys­tem (EOOS), but nei­ther the Com­mis­sion nor the Mem­ber States have yet found a way to make it work and, above all, to fund it. The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion contac­ted me recent­ly because it sees AMRIT as a pro­ject that could change all that.”

He adds that a new regu­la­tion pro­po­sed by the Com­mis­sion entit­led “Ocean Obser­va­tion – Sha­ring Res­pon­si­bi­li­ty” could be a deci­sive step for­ward. If adop­ted by the next Com­mis­sion, it will oblige EU Mem­ber States to observe the oceans in an ope­ra­tio­nal way. “Obser­va­tion of the oceans includes many ele­ments : tem­pe­ra­ture, sali­ni­ty, of course car­bon, but also fish and para­me­ters more rela­ted to mari­time acti­vi­ties, such as noise – and of course pol­lu­tion. Car­bon is the para­me­ter that we all want to try and mea­sure much more sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly, because the ocean is a car­bon pump, and this pump is being dan­ge­rous­ly wea­ke­ned by cli­mate change. Bet­ter moni­to­ring of the ocean’s capa­ci­ty to absorb car­bon is now essen­tial, and it’s a glo­bal issue.” The Glo­bal Green House Gases Watch (G3W), an ongoing pro­gramme of the World Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Orga­ni­sa­tion (WMO), is wor­king in this direc­tion, and mea­su­ring car­bon dioxide exchanges could become compulsory.

“This will be the focus of my work over the coming months. With my col­leagues from the Euro­pean marine RIs, we have eve­ry inten­tion of influen­cing EOOS and pro­po­sing solu­tions. And with its excep­tio­nal research poten­tial, IP Paris must be part of this col­lec­tive effort” says Laurent Mortier.

Interview by Isabelle Dumé

Refe­rence :

Ocean­Gli­ders : A Com­ponent of the Inte­gra­ted GOOS DOI :10.3389/fmars.2019.00422