Scientists Studying Currents

The SOLO Float

Surface currents have been studied by sailors for hundreds of years. Early ships depended on winds and currents. Understanding currents was important to people who used the ocean for fishing, trade and travel.

Scientific studies of currents date back more than 100 years. In early studies, researchers set afloat drift bottles and other types of floating markers form ships or into offshore currents. Their movement was then charted with the help of other scientists, sailors, or even beachcombers who would report finding them.

For nearly 40 years scientists at Scripps, and around the world, have been involved in intensive efforts to understand currents in relation to world ocean circulation patterns. Most recently, the relationship between the ocean and the atmosphere and its effect on climate has become a major environmental issue.

The development of a worldwide network of communication satellites, and the invention of computers able to process huge amounts of information, set the stage for the current generation of instruments.

Drifters were invented that recorded the speed and direction of currents from the motion of the drifter within the current. Drifters able to take many different direct measurements simultaneously were also developed. They could record ocean temperature, salinity, pressure, and other variables in addition to current speed and direction.

Satellite transmission devices fitted to drifters "talked" directly to overhead satellites, which instantly relayed data to labs on land. The wealth of new data was used to make complex models of water circulation and density patterns and the movement of heat in the ocean. These models were used to study possible climate change.