This Monday, the first new generation French floats joined the giant fleet of the Argo network, an international program that collects data in the seas of the globe to understand the effects of climate change on our oceans.
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The French Institute for Research for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer) announced on Monday that it had deployed its first two floats of the Argo network capable of diving up to 6,000 meters deep to measure ocean currents and global warming.
After the United States and China, France is the third country in the world to design autonomous underwater instruments capable of operating at these extreme depths and measuring salinity, temperature, oxygen and pressure.
« We will be able to track global warming down to the oceanic abysses, » said Virginie Thierry, physicist oceanographer at Ifremer, quoted in a statement.
Profiler floats are programmed over a ten-day cycle to dive up to 6,000 meters deep and then rise to the surface, according to the Ifremer site. During this ascent, they collect physico-chemical data from the depth to the surface and then transmit the data by satellite, details the institute.
Launched in the early 2000s, the Argo international program is composed of 4,000 drifting floats on the seas and oceans of the globe, which measure temperature, salinity and other parameters in near real time. About thirty countries participate in this network around the world.
With 306 underwater robots at the end of 2025, France is the second largest contributor to the program after the United States, which manages more than 2,300, according to the Argo website.
By 2028, the French fleet should be reinforced by 30 of these new profiling floats capable of withstanding extreme pressures from the abyss, which should be mainly deployed in the North Atlantic.
The cost of this technological jewelry is around 80,000 euros each.
Argo’s data is cited in more than 6,000 scientific publications and nearly 500 doctoral theses, according to the program’s website
source : geo.fr
