What underwater robots might be able to tell us about India's monsoon
Seven swimming robots will take to the sea later this month to help scientists investigate unanswered questions about India's monsoon season.聽
After departing from the southern port city of Chennai, researchers will spend a month at sea releasing the torpedo-shaped underwater robots across a 400-kilometer (250-mi.) stretch of water in the Bay of Bengal. The robots, which will navigate to a depth of 1,000 meters, are programmed to transmit data measuring water salinity, temperature, and current via satellite.聽
Lead researcher Adrian Matthews describes the Indian monsoon as 鈥渘otoriously hard to predict.鈥�
鈥淚t is a very complicated weather system and the ,鈥� Dr. Matthews said in a press release. 鈥淣obody has ever made observations on this scale during the monsoon season itself so this is a truly groundbreaking project.鈥�
The project is led by the University of East Anglia, where Matthews is a professor of meteorology.
The potential danger of working on a ship during the severe weather of monsoon season has deterred many researchers from doing so, resulting in a lack of observations. But Matthews and his team anticipate that the swimming robots, which aren鈥檛 put in peril by strong winds or high waves, may be able to provide them with some long due data about how ocean conditions affect rainfall patterns.聽
鈥淲e don鈥檛 know what we鈥檙e going to find,鈥澛爋ceanographer Ben Webber, who is a research associate at the University of East Anglia, told the Associated Press.聽鈥淲e may confirm what we think theoretically. It鈥檚 quite exciting.鈥�
The monsoon, which first hit India on June 8 this year, delivers more than 70 percent of the subcontinent鈥檚 annual rainfall and heavily influences the nation's agricultural industry. This year鈥檚 monsoon arrived a week later than usual and has been slow in moving north.
"We need to better understand how the monsoon works," said meteorologist D.P. Yadav, who works on monsoon forecasts for the government, to the Associated Press. "Most of our states' economies depend on it. It is the most important weather event for India." 聽
