A unique voyage to build a greater scientific understanding of the marine environment in the Arctic and the impacts of global climate change will see a team of scientists and ‘citizen scientists’ setting sail from Svalbard at the start of September aboard Europe’s largest wooden schooner.
Ocean Warrior is the brainchild of internationally-renowned explorer, Jim McNeill, who has been running scientific expeditions to the Arctic for over two decades and has acted as a consultant for natural history programmes such as the BBC’s Frozen Planet.
Designed to collect critical scientific measurements from remote areas of the Arctic Ocean in order to build up an improved picture of the changes taking place due to climate change and other factors, Ocean Warrior will also help to ‘ground-truth’ data collected via satellites.
For the first ten-day leg of the expedition (departing Svalbard on September 1st with a subsequent departure on September 11th), the 18-strong team, including crew members, scientists and citizen scientists are tasked with building an understanding of the vessel and her capabilities, in order that the potential for scientific data capture can be maximised. The expedition aims to install and test scientific and technological equipment such as weather stations, FerryBox, CTD, Bathymetry, Communications, and Safety. Additionally, an online dashboard will be created to convey the findings and capture stories through digital and broadcast content capture.
The project is being supported by Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), a world leader in the field of marine research, Valeport, (which designs and manufactures oceanographic and hydrographic instrumentation), Mole Energy, Dartmoor Brewery and Henri Lloyd.
Travelling to seldom-visited areas of the Ocean each year between June and October, Ocean Warrior intends to cover 10,000 nautical miles each year, over the next ten years, collecting data on a range of key ‘indicators’ – in areas such as water quality, plankton, eDNA, salinity and ocean acidity.
This will help scientists gain a clearer understanding of the pace of changes taking place, their impacts on marine ecosystems, and what the future may hold for the Arctic region and the wildlife, populations and economies which depend upon it.