‘Adopt a Float’ - Kids drawings diving down 1000's of metres

Mitochondria, llamas and waves are just some of the drawings adorning these Argo floats. 🦙 The floats have been adopted by school kids from around the world as part of the global ‘Adopt a Float’ initiative that aims to inspire and educate students about our oceans and the importance of studying and understanding them. 🌎🚢 Argo is an international programme that is using a fleet of over 4,000 of these hi-tech floats to collect global ocean data. 🤖 Every year, Earth Sciences New Zealand vessels deploy dozens of Argo floats as part of the programme. The floats travel to depths of up to 6,000 metres before returning to the surface and relaying temperature, pressure and salinity data to satellites overhead. 🛰️ Behind every float, there are nervous technicians preparing them for deployment, scientists eager to use the data, and the school kids who have adopted them, named them and provided pictures to be drawn on them. 🧑‍🎨🔧 On the most recent voyage, crew aboard Kaharoa II travelled over 9,000 nautical miles deploying over 100 floats. Technicians from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, University of Washington and CSIRO visited our Wellington Greta Point site to ensure the floats were ready to go.