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Saildrone research fleet to circle Antarctica for 5 years

By Theo Stein, NOAA Research

A sturdy, bright orange water vessel called a Saildrone is towed through choppy water.
A Saildrone uncrewed surface vehicle is towed out of the Australian port of Hobart, Tasmania, before being released into the Southern Ocean to collect vital oceanographic data. (Image courtesy of CSIRO/APP)

The Southern Ocean is one of the roughest and most dangerous bodies of water on Earth. It’s also key to understanding the global climate system.

The vast distances and harsh conditions of the Southern Ocean have discouraged traditional ship-borne investigations that would help researchers resolve significant questions about just how much carbon dioxide (CO2) the ocean absorbs, especially in winter. That’s why scientists are now turning to uncrewed systems.

A 3D illustration of the globe centered on Antarctica, with a zigzagging route circumnavigating the frozen continent.
An example of the kind of route (labeled in red) Saildrones will navigate as they sail around Antarctica during the 2026 COCO2 five-year mission. (Image credit: Saildrone, Inc.)

On September 19, 2026, the first of four sturdy, instrumented Saildrone Explorer uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) departed from Hobart, Tasmania, marking the start of an ambitious, five-year effort to tackle this challenge.

Led by researchers at NOAA (including co-located UW CICOES scientists), Columbia University, Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Constraining Ocean Carbon with Optimized Observing (COCO2) project will deploy three more Saildrones every three months during 2027. The small fleet will repeatedly circumnavigate Antarctica, collecting data about the ocean around them as they navigate along courses identified by AI-driven ocean-air models to intersect with high-value target areas.

The ocean stores about a third of CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere each year, and scientists estimate the Southern Ocean accounts for 40% of the total, said Adrienne Sutton, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and a co-lead of the project.

“The global ocean is Earth’s largest carbon sink, and the Southern Ocean plays an outsized role,” Sutton said. “With COCO2 we are filling a critical knowledge gap by adding observations during winter — something we have not been able to do with traditional oceanographic tools.”

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Read the full story at NOAA Research