challenger.marine.rutgers.eduChallenger Glider Mission - Home

Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Rutgers Rutgers–New Brunswick myRutgers Search Rutgers The Challenger Glider Mission | RUCOOL Menu Home Mission The Challenger Glider Mission The Science Education and Collaboration The Challenger Glider Approach The Technology Maps Partners Learned Societies Government Sponsors Industry Sponsors Academic Partners Blog Diagnostics Publications Video SupportMenu Home Mission The Challenger Glider Mission The Science Education and Collaboration The Challenger Glider Approach The Technology Maps Partners Learned Societies Government Sponsors Industry Sponsors Academic Partners Blog Diagnostics Publications Video Support Mission To date, technologies have been inadequate to meet our food, water and energy needs, and far too few scientists and engineers in this generation or the next are yet equipped to tackle these challenges. The gap is daunting, made more so by the... Mission The Challenger Glider Mission The modern Challenger mission will involve 16 global-class autonomous underwater gliders that will be flown on coordinated flights covering 128,000 kilometers around the five ocean basins. These underwater gliders will be outfitted with payloads that... The Challenger Glider Mission The Science Energy from the sun drives the Earth’s weather and climate. The ocean and atmosphere absorb energy and redistribute that heat through ocean currents and atmospheric winds. The amount of heat stored and redistributed in the ocean is immense, with... The Science Education and Collaboration The educational goals of the Challenger Glider Mission is to increase global ocean literacy, entrain the next generation of ocean scientists, develop a training test-bed, and provide a forum for people to join a global science mission.... Education and Collaboration The Challenger Glider Approach Currently many models exist for the oceans.The models range from coarse global models to higher resolution regional models. These models are capable of describing the interactions between the land, ocean and atmosphere, but interactive models are... The Challenger Glider Approach The Technology The new global-class glider designed and developed over the last decade provides the opportunity for coordinated global fleets that can fill a gap in the Earth’s global observing system. The TechnologyIndian Ocean: Perth to Sri Lanka After the successful circumnavigation of the South Atlantic which concluded in March 2016, Challenger spent the summer in the shop getting repaired and is about to begin the next mission: a circumnavigation of the Indian Ocean. With the support of the Vetlesen Foundation and CLS America, beginning November 2016 and spanning the next few years, the glider will make it’s way from Perth, Australia North towards Indonesia with a recovery point off of Sri Lanka. From there, Challenger will progress South Westward towards Reunion Island en route to Madagascar or South Africa before making the return journey Eastward back to Australia. Building off of the success of RU 27’s crossing of the North Atlantic in 2009, members of COOL are now leading a global effort to complete the Challenger Mission which is a multi-year initiative to pilot ocean gliders around the world’s ocean basins to spread ocean literacy and educating the general public about our ocean planet. Come join COOL which is seeking partnership and support. To date, a mission from Iceland to Barbados by way of the Canary Islands was completed in the North Atlantic by the Slocum Glider "Silbo," while RU 29 completed its South Atlantic Crossing. In April of 2016 Silbo was deployed off of the East Coast of the US and is 80% of the way across the North Atlantic with an expected recovery date of December 2016 in the U.K. Read more about the Challenger Mission here on the BlogSilbo: N. Atlantic Crossing On April 13 2016, Teledyne Webb Research’s glider Silbo was deployed off of Falmouth Massachusettes on a mission to cross the North Atlantic. With a planned recovery port of Falmouth, England, the glider is expected to be picked up in early to mid December. This mission is part of a collaboration between Rutgers, Teledyne Web Research, University Las Palmas, National Oceanographic Centre, Puertos del Estado... For more information on the mission, check out the Silbo Blog Global Telecom System Glider data from the Challenger Mission is flowing to Global Telecommunication System and is being assimilated by European and American global ocean forecast models. The glider data has been used to assess the predictive skill between the American and European operational global ocean forecast models. Results have identified discrepancies between the two models that vary in time and space. Results are being fed back to the agencies to fuel informed model improvement. UNESCO The Challenger mission was endorsed by UNESCO in June 2015 in part to help develop an international array of glider ports that can support this technology globally. To date the Challenger has entrained partners developing a network of glider ports/partners from a range of countries that include the United States, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Cape Verde, South Africa, Iceland, United Kingdom, Brazil, and Australia. Planned missions in 2016 will lead to the addition of Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Ireland, and Norway to the Challenger team. We live on a finite planet with 7 billion people. Despite the tremendous progress of human civilization, nearly 800 million people still lack access to clean water, more than 1 billion are undernourished, and over 1.4 billion live without electricity. By 2050, the human population will grow by another 2 billion, with expansion concentrated in less developed countries and crowded megacities along vulnerable coasts and waterways. With these new constraints, the global community will increasingly look to the sea for sustainable and resilient solutions to meet the growing demand for water, food and energy. The ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface and contains 97 percent of the planet’s water. It produces half of the oxygen we breathe, and controls the Earth’s water cycle, including the rains that support food crops. It stores and transports the heat that controls weather and regulates climate. It is the greenest pathway for global commerce, and it is an effective barrier for security and defense, structuring geopolitical boundaries throughout human history. And yet, 95 percent of this vast frontier remains unexplored... Follow our blog for further updates on the Challenger Glider Mission Read more... Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 71 Dudley Rd., New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8520 Marine Sciences Bldg. | 848-932-6555 Webmaster: webocean@marine.rutgers.edu Copyright © 2016 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Rutgers–New Brunswick myRutgers Search Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station SEBS and NJAES Newsroom...