Australia’s CSIRO launched a fleet of uncrewed sailing drones from Hobart on 24 September 2026 to monitor carbon dioxide absorption across the Southern Ocean, launching a five-year international campaign to close critical observation gaps in one of the planet’s harshest marine environments.
The Southern Ocean absorbs a staggering share of global emissions, pulling down a huge proportion of the carbon dioxide drawn from the atmosphere every year. Yet researchers have long struggled to measure these remote waters consistently, particularly during winter when ship traffic halts.
To tackle that persistent blind spot, an international coalition of science agencies has deployed an autonomous fleet designed to endure freezing conditions, high winds, and rolling swells without a single crew member on board.
CSIRO Hobart Deployments and Saildrone Technology
The first wave of uncrewed surface vehicles left CSIRO Hobart on 24 September 2026, kicking off a multi-year monitoring effort. Built by the unmanned systems specialist Saildrone, these autonomous mobile research platforms rely entirely on wind and solar power to traverse remote expanses for months at a time.
Each vehicle will record atmospheric and oceanographic observations in real time, gathering data on sea surface temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, wind speed, barometric pressure, relative humidity, and air temperature alongside both atmospheric and seawater carbon dioxide levels.
According to Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization officials, ocean sinks store roughly one-third of all carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere annually, with the Southern Ocean alone accounting for 40 percent of that global marine uptake.
Circumnavigating Antarctica Over Five Years
The operational plan involves sending out a fleet of four Saildrone Explorers to patrol different zones of the Southern Ocean. Every quarter over the next five years, fresh vessels will deploy to circumnavigate Antarctica.
We will have a fleet of four Saildrone Explorers operating at different points around the Southern Ocean. As a USV completes a circumnavigation of Antarctica, it will come back into Hobart where sensors will be replaced and the USV will be redeployed to start another circumnavigation. This pattern will continue for the duration of the five-year project.
Dr Adrienne Sutton, NOAA
Every complete deployment will cover approximately 22,000 kilometers, granting scientists unprecedented geographical coverage in seasons and regions where commercial ships and research vessels simply cannot venture safely.
Global Science Partners and AI Integration
This ambitious initiative operates as a broad international collaboration. Participating institutions include the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, South Africa’s Southern Ocean Carbon-Climate Observatory, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Columbia University, the University of Washington, and Schmidt Sciences through the Virtual Institute for the Carbon Cycle program.
Rather than following rigid, pre-set paths, the sailing drones will adapt their routes dynamically as conditions warrant.
Researchers intend to feed the incoming data into advanced, model-driven observing tools and artificial intelligence systems to examine carbon cycling in granular detail. This intelligence will directly support the annual Global Carbon Budget, which calculates global carbon sources and sinks ahead of its November release cycle.