Exploring Our Blue Planet Using Underwater Robots with Lily Dove

! Hi, my name is Lily Dove, and I just finished up a graduate school at Caltech. And I am extremely excited to get to talk to you about all the work I've done here at Caltech, but I'm specifically going to talk to you about how we explore our blue planet using underwater robots. Before I was a graduate student, I was a lot of other things, but

specifically, I spent a lot of time on this beach in St. Augustine, Florida, which is my hometown. I was always extremely interested in understanding where does all the power of the ocean come from? How does the ocean and the atmosphere interact? Where are all these waves coming from? This interest was really sparked, especially by my interest in living on a boat. So this is a picture

of me in 2005 aboard the Bounty, which is a beautiful tall ship that I saw multiple times throughout my life. And during this time, I wasn't really thinking about science or about going to graduate school or becoming a scientist. I was probably thinking about becoming a pirate, defeating other bad pirates, learning how to fight with swords and find treasure. But that dream lie after me a

little bit. The interest in boats never left. This is me aboard the USS Constitution, another gorgeous tall ship, which is mored in Boston. So although I don't work as a pirate, although I don't use swords on a day-to-day basis, I do get to work on boats. So this is me once again in front of the Nathaniel B. Palmer. And also a picture of the RV Roger

Revelle. And these are both ships that are commissioned by the United States government, which allow us to do science on some of the wildest seas around the world. So this led me to the question. All right. I want to go on boats. How do I do that? Who gets to do that job? And there are a lot of people who get to explore the ocean with

their jobs. The first are marine biologists. And these are people you may have heard of who work with dolphins and sharks and fish and sea otters, and then also smaller creatures, like microbes and bacteria, that live in our oceans. And they do a very important job of helping us understand how life forms, evolves, and lives in our oceans. Merchant Marines are another group of people who

get to explore the ocean. And Merchant Marines are people who make my job possible. These are people who get to stay on the bridge of a ship, who get to look out for danger, who get to pilot the ship, who get to steer it around, and also make sure that everyone in the ship is working together and doing their jobs. There are also geologists who get

to explore the ocean. That's a little funny when I first learned that, because I thought geologists just worked with rocks on the ground. But turns out that rocks on the sea floor, underneath all of the water, are also extremely interesting. And there are geologists who go out and collect rocks from the sea floor to help understand and unravel the history of the ocean. There are also

engineers who get to work on the ocean. These are people who keep ships running, make sure that everyone has food and water, and also make sure that everyone is staying healthy and happy on board. And then finally, there are people like me. There are oceanographers who get to explore the ocean for their job. This is a picture of me aboard the Roger Revelle, one of those

ships I showed you a picture of. And you can see how happy I am here. And what I'm doing here is shaking a bottle of sea water. And that is not something that a lot of people find as exciting as I do, but maybe you do. And that is really great. The reason I became interested in doing oceanography is because the ocean plays a vital role

in our climate system. What I mean by that is our climate system is made up of all the parts of the earth, from the trees to the ocean to the atmosphere to all the rocks around us. The ocean is a central hub in that system. But we're playing a big experiment in our climate right now. And that's because we're releasing a lot of extra carbon into

the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels, like when we drive cars, when we create cement, when we lay new roads, and also when we change forests into deserts. And that is what I'm plotting here. This is a picture showing the release of carbon into the atmosphere. And you can see that we are releasing a value of approximately 20%. And that is just a really, really large

amount of carbon. One gigaton of carbon is equivalent to 6 million blue whales worth of carbon. So that's just a huge amount. That wouldn't fit in this room with me. But luckily our earth is doing a great job for us and taking up some of that carbon that we're putting in. So first of all, the forests and all the greenery around us is taking up some

of that carbon. We call that land. And uptake. In addition, the ocean is taking up some of that carbon. Some of it in the form of organic matter, when plants grow in the ocean, and then sink. And some of it in the form of carbon dissolving into the water. But then the majority of that carbon that we're releasing into the atmosphere is actually left in the

atmosphere. And this is what we experienced day to day as climate change or global warming. So when you hear that summer, you're seeing that on average are getting warmer or that you're seeing rainfall in different places across the United States or across the world. This is that pattern that you're seeing. But I'm extremely interested in this middle part, this ocean uptake. How carbon gets from the

atmosphere into the middle of the ocean. And it's not just carbon we're interested in. We're also interested in heat. Because we're also putting excess heat into the atmosphere. And that's what we're looking for. And that heat needs to go somewhere and a lot of it goes into the ocean. And this is showing that heat. So what's plotted here on the ex-axis is time, and these are

different years. And then on the y-axis is the change in temperature of our ocean since 1880. And I put on here a couple of key dates. So you can see in 1920 when women got the right to vote in the United States, the ocean was doing okay. It was pretty cool. World War Two, things really started heating up a bit. And that's because we started playing

a lot of extra carbon into the atmosphere. When we walked on the moon in 1969, things were warming up. And then I was born in 1996. And you can see that our planet has been warming since then. And our ocean has been warming especially. Our ocean is now half a degree warmer than it was, only a hundred years ago. So all of these questions were in

my mind. And I would know what to do with all of them because they were really interesting. I knew all these things about heat. I knew that the ocean was extremely interesting. But I didn't know what to do with all of that information. And it was a couple of key teachers in my life who played a very important role in directing me in the direction I

wanted to go. Mr. Rivera was my chemistry teacher in high school. And he is the one who taught me how to put all of this information together. And come up with a scientific hypothesis or a question that I wanted to go after. And then I was like, what's my English teacher? And that might be kind of interesting to hear a scientist say that an English teacher

was a really big influence on her. But Mr. Cogland taught me how to write and taught me how to express my ideas in a way so that people would listen and think that they were important as well. So all of this came to me wanting to ask the question, how do we take the ocean's temperature? And remember I talked about how I really wanted to go

out on boats. It turns out that that is the perfect way to do it. So I have a way to answer this kind of question. So how do we observe the ocean? We use a lot of different tools, and I'm going to talk about several of them. But the first one that we use is something called a CTD rosette. So I'm showing here a picture of

me. I'm in the back. And my friend Bailey. And we're setting up this tool called the CTD rosette. And that CTD stands for conductivity, temperature, and depth. And you've probably heard the terms temperature and depth of the ocean. So the first one that I talked about is the depth of the ocean. And we have a very important depth before. Conductivity is really just a fancy word

we use in oceanography to say saltiness. How salty is the ocean? And with this tool, we are able to collect water at different depths in the ocean. And we are also use sensors to measure temperature, that saltiness, and other ocean properties. And the way this works is we put this big tool over the side of the ship. And we send it all the way to the

bottom. And then we bring it all the way back up. And as we're doing that, we are collecting water. And we are also making measurements of all of those different properties of the ocean. And what's really fun is that when you're somebody like me who goes out on these boats, you can watch the data come back in real time. So we'll sit by the computer and

we'll watch the tool sink to the bottom. And then as it's coming up, it's sending us the data. And we're going to be back all of its data. And you can see here it's kind of a party. People really get excited about seeing what cool information we're getting. When this tool comes back to the surface, we then have our job is just beginning. We have a

lot of work to do. Scientists begin a party of running around this instrument and collecting water from all of the different bottles so that they can go measure their different properties that they're interested in. Whether it be biology or chemistry or aspects of the physics of the ocean. And sometimes my job is to track which bottles have already been sampled by which people so that everyone

can make sure that they get the water that they need. And also that people aren't getting repeats. Once you have all of those bottles, you can see Albert there with a ton of bottles that he has to now go experiment on. The experiments begin. You can see my friend Sidney here beginning an experiment to understand how much carbon is in the ocean water that she collected.

The problem is sometimes the ocean doesn't agree with us. You may have seen videos like this before, where you're having a nice day out on the ocean. And it's really lovely and beautiful. And then there are big waves. And the wind is powerful. And everyone's getting seasick. And I've had several of those days myself out at sea. And while I find it kind of fun to

measure the ocean when it stormy outside or when we can't be there in person is using something called Autonomous Profiling Flots. And this is where the robots part of my presentation begins. So you can see a picture of me here with again with my friend Bailey. And we're standing next to this weird yellow tube. And this is one of those Autonomous Profiling Flots or ocean robots

that we use. So you can see that this float is bright yellow. And there are a lot of hidden features of it that I want to point out to you. The first is up at the beach. And at the top, there are sensors that help us measure all of those things that we were measuring with the CTD rosette. First, we want to measure temperature and saltiness.

But we also want to measure the other properties of the ocean, the biology and chemistry that all of my friends were measuring. There's also at the top a transmitter so that floats can make a satellite connection and call home. And I'll be talking about that more in just a minute. This tube is the battery of the float. And this battery is so powerful that it means

that this float can stay out on its own on the ocean for three to five years without somebody having to come and fix it or collect it or get data off of it. And that makes it extremely powerful. Because while I love being at sea, don't want to spend three to five years. I have family and friends and pets that I have. I want to see.

But these floats can stay out there for that amount of time and collect this data for us. And finally near the bottom, there are even more sensors that help us detect biological signatures in the ocean. So that means that oceanographers like me can work alongside marine biologists and other scientists. And I want to show you a video of us deploying one of these floats. And what

deployment means is putting one of these floats in the ocean. I find this very fun to watch. So this is a video of us putting getting the float ready to go overboard. And then us putting it over the side of the ship. And then it floats off on its merry way. Ready to go sample the ocean. So the life cycle of one of these floats is

we put that float over the side of the ship. We deploy it. And then that float will dive to 1,000 meters below the surface. And that's really deep. If you or I tried to go to 1,000 meters, we would be crushed by the pressure. But these floats are able to sustain that pressure and make measurements while they're doing it. The float drifts around for 10 days.

And it's just following the currents of the ocean. It's just going where the ocean tells it to. So that means it might just spin in a circle for a little bit. Or it means it might rip off down the oceanic highway. The float after 10 days will dive to two thousand meters depth. And then come back up to the surface and call home via that satellite

connection I mentioned. After that float calls home, it's going to dive to get depth again. So that calling home with its data is extremely vital because it means that we can see the data coming back to us live while we're on the ship. Or while we're at home with our pets. So we don't have to be out on the ocean. So we're collecting this data. The

float is doing it for us. So these floats have been deployed. Put out on the ocean for 20 years now. And they're constantly evolving. We're always adding new sensors or new ways of measuring the ocean. But what always strikes me is how our global coverage or view of how the ocean works has changed as a result of floats. So what is shown here is the coverage

of ocean data before floats started being put out in the ocean. And each of these dots represents a different part of the ocean. The black dots represent places where we have very little data. And the white spots represent regions where we have no data at all. And then some of these regions in brighter colors are places where we have more data. And you can see that's

biased to the northern hemisphere and also biased to the coasts. But, since we have been deploying floats, wow, our picture's really changed. So you can see now that not only is more of the ocean covered, there are barely any white spots left. There are almost no places left in the ocean where we don't have a data point, where we don't know what's going on. And you

can see there's still a little limitation. There are parts of the ocean that are less covered than others. And there's still some bias towards the coasts. But overall, our ability to understand the ocean has grown massively as a result of increased coverage by floats. So what does that data actually look like? So this is a picture of sea surface temperature across the global ocean. And there

are some patterns here you can pick out. The ocean is colder near the poles, near the Arctic ocean, near Antarctica. And then at the equator, we're in the tropics, the ocean is much warmer. But you can see there are patterns in between there. And this is the kind of picture that floats have enabled us to capture. Where I get interested is understanding the physics of the

ocean. And I am really interested in understanding how the ocean moves and data from the floats has enabled us to capture this movement in a way that was never available before. What's showing here is the major flows of the ocean. And these are things we've been doing able to capture with the floats that would take us years, if not decades, to capture using traditional technologies like

us going out on ships and making measurements. So the question becomes who uses this data. It's really cool we're collecting all of this information. It's really interesting that we're going out to sea or we're sending floats to do that information collection for us. But who actually uses this data? And it turns out it's a lot more people than you might think. First of all, farmers use

this information. Farmers are extremely interested in when and where they're going to get rain. And also when and where it's going to be warmer or colder than you would expect. So information like that gathered by the floats provides farmers with that information so they can plan ahead of time. Additionally, the energy industry is extremely interested in this information. Not only the oil and gas industry, but

also alternative energy industry. Offshore wind and onshore wind power companies. They're extremely interested in understanding when they might get an influx of wind power or heat that will impact the workings of their mechanics. Additionally, you can imagine the shipping industry will be extremely interested in this information. You've probably seen these giant cargo ships pulling into the bay of Long Beach or another big dock. And these

ships are carrying your cars and your televisions and everything else you want to use on a day-to-day basis. And in order for those things to get to you, they need to first get across an ocean. And so this information that we collect with the floats provides information to the shipping industry so that they can get those products to you safe and sound. Also, Fisher people use

this data. Fisher people rely on data from floats in order to understand where they're going to see certain species of fish, where they might not be seeing fish, and also understand changes with time so that they can make predictions for the future years. Finally, scientists like me use this data because we're extremely interested in understanding how the atmosphere, the ocean, and other parts of our Earth

work together in order to form a place where life is possible for us. And humans and also other creatures. And it always amazes me that I can count myself among this amazing group of people of scientists doing this work, because I never would have imagined that when I was the young person standing on this beach looking out. And if you, like me, are the kind of

person who gets really inspired by nature, who maybe it's your local beach, maybe it is your local garden or forest. Maybe it's the clouds in the sky. But if those are the kind of things that capture your attention and you wonder how does that work? How do we even understand those things? Maybe you can be an oceanographer or an Earth scientist. I really encourage you next

time you're in that space and you are curious. I encourage you to think about how do we measure those things? How do we use robots and other technology? To go out and collect data about the Earth around us so that we can best respect and protect our planet? I have suggestions for lots of different media that you can consume about the ocean. You may have heard

of our planet, a Netflix show or Finding Nemo, a Disney movie, which although it is animated is one of the best introductions to oceanography that I've ever come across. There are also several books and manga series that I've been using. There's available in your local library that you can check out if you are very interested in oceanography. I am extremely grateful that you've decided to spend

some of your time with me today. Thank you for being here. I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you for watching. See you next time. Bye.