It’s spring, the sun is shining and something is about to happen with the plankton in the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. Long bright days and rising temperatures have awakened the phytoplankton. The spring bloom has begun, and populations of these tiny plankton are growing explosively beneath the surface.
From a boat out on the fjord, Tore Mo-Bjørkelund launches a robot into the sea. Then another one.
“Spring is a hectic time in the ocean, and algal blooms are a dynamic and complex process. They are difficult to analyze in detail,” says Mo-Bjørkelund.
The robots are two lightweight autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that have been programmed to move around in the water and detect the fluorescence emitted by chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is the green pigment that phytoplankton uses for photosynthesis.
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