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Pride of Bilbao to keep check on the ocean`s health

June 05, 2002

P&O Portsmouth`s ship Pride of Bilbao has recently taken on board more than her regular load of passengers. A box of scientific sensors has been installed in the ship`s engine room to collect valuable data about the state of the ocean each time she sails from Portsmouth through the diverse Bay of Biscay to Spain and across the Channel to Cherbourg.

The sensors measure the water temperature, salinity and fluorescence, as well as the ship`s position and time, to help understand what makes our oceans `tick`.

The data is sent via satellite to Southampton Oceanography Centre (SOC), where scientists will use it to monitor processes occurring in the water which can affect the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, an important `greenhouse gas`.

The newly installed system on the Pride of Bilbao is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, and from later this year it will be additionally supported by European Union funding.

Dr David Hydes, from SOC, explains how the system works: `The sensors sample water taken into the ship to cool the engines. A computer collects the data and sends it to a satellite communications unit on the ship`s bridge. From there it is beamed via satellite to SOC, where it is decoded and displayed on our website.`

`An earlier system installed on a Red Funnel ferry operating from Southampton to Cowes has already proved how well the system can work. This data has improved our knowledge of exactly when sunshine and tides allow plankton blooms to develop in Southampton Water and the Solent.`

`Commercial ships have great potential for providing important scientific data, using new automated equipment like this that needs little looking after,` added Dr Hydes. `These "ships of opportunity" regularly run the same routes and the data collected is ideal for validating the sophisticated models being built to predict changes in the oceans and climate.`

The new sensor system on the Pride of Bilbao will be linked to other operations around Europe involving data collection on ferries in the Baltic, North and Irish Seas and in the Mediterranean.

Data from the Pride of Bilbao will also contribute towards ongoing research into the distribution of whales and dolphins in the Bay of Biscay. Volunteers from the Biscay Dolphin Research Programme have been boarding the ship once a month for the past seven years to study the movements and abundance of these aquatic mammals, but there are still some questions that cannot be answered.

Biscay Dolphin Research Programme`s Director and SOC scientist Andy Williams says: `This additional data will help us to relate the physical properties of the ocean to the appearance of whales and dolphins in an area. We`d like to look in more detail at the relationship between these animals and their environment.`

Southampton, University of