An ocean-going yacht will serve as the platform for a groundbreaking, two-pronged marine science investigation, starting next week. A multidisciplinary team of researchers from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) and the Environmental Ocean Team (EOT), a company which aims to unite science with recreational sailing, have set sail from Trapani in Southern Italy coast aboard the yacht Adriatica. They are heading for Almeria on Spain’s southern coast to study open ocean turbulence and bioluminescence as an indicator of toxic algal blooms.
The research will be conducted on the Almeria-Oran front in the Alboran Sea, the Westernmost tip of the Mediterranean. The Alboran Sea, which lies between Spain and Africa, sees the warm and salty Mediterranean water mix with the water from the Atlantic entering the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar. This cocktail of different waters makes an important habitat for marine life, and the area is a testbed for two novel studies aimed at improving our knowledge of the Mediterranean and the way it is changing.
In one study researchers will measure turbulence to improve the understanding of this aspect of marine dynamics. In a parallel study, they will investigate algal blooms including some that are toxic and may carry important ecological implications.
The sailing vessel Adriatica is celebrity in its own right on Italian television with regular appearances in the show, Velisti per Caso.
Emilio Tesi, one of the directors of Environmental Ocean Team and a NOCS graduate, said: "This is a high profile scientific initiative with a strong focus on environmental protection and raising public aweareness. The use of a sailing vessel for oceanographic research is one of the distinguishing features of EOT and allows us to present scientific research in an intriguing way, reaching out to wider audiences”.
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