Programme overview Informed solutions to
challenges that matter

“The North Atlantic is one of the engine rooms of the Earth's climate, yet we still observe it only in fragments. We need to reveal how heat, carbon and nutrients move through the ocean, reducing uncertainty in climate prediction and strengthening our ability to respond to change. Sustained autonomous ocean observation is no longer only a scientific ambition - it is the foundation of a national strategic capability.”

“The seafloor is intrinsic to ocean health: it accumulates and recycles resources that directly impact biodiversity and the blue economy. The problem is we don’t yet measure seafloor properties at scales that would transform our understanding of how it interacts with the ocean column above it. We need to expand our autonomous capability to observe seafloor biogeochemical properties in new dimensions of time and space to accelerate our research and improve our models.”

“Digital twins of our coastal seas are essential components of a sustainable and productive future blue economy. The mass deployment of sensors on ocean floats has transformed our understanding of ocean processes, significantly improving ocean models, but we are yet to replicate this across our EEZ. Upscaling marine autonomy that can regularly make those measurements is a necessary precursor and brings the added benefit of being a rapidly deployable capability that can respond to extreme but increasingly frequent events such as marine heatwaves.”

“In the North Atlantic, two major, ocean-related tipping points may occur due to anthropogenic climate change resulting in profound consequences for the marine environment and for the UK through rising sea levels and changes in extreme weather patterns. However, fundamental knowledge gaps remain regarding both the likelihood of these tipping points being triggered and their wider socio-economic consequences. Expanding marine autonomy would play a critical key role in reducing these uncertainties by supplementing our current ocean observing networks.”

“The crucial role of ocean circulation in controlling the pace of climate change is becoming more conspicuous year on year. However, our capacity to predict how this role will evolve in coming decades remains limited, because of the vast range of scales of flow – from centimetres to thousands of kilometres – that relentlessly shape the circulation’s behaviour. A step advance in our autonomous capability is essential to observe this breadth of scales, and unlock the understanding needed to boost our models’ predictive power.”

“National marine autonomy provides the scale to penetrate the world oceans including far away polar regions, presenting an unparalleled opportunity to reimagine how we observe our changing polar oceans, allowing us to move decisively toward an autonomy-led scientific delivery model. By investing in resilient, long-range uncrewed fleets, we can maintain a sustained, year-round presence in the planet's harshest marine environments while reducing our operational carbon footprint. This transition to an intelligent, autonomy-driven infrastructure is exactly what is needed to accelerate our science-to-policy pipeline, delivering the key biodiversity and climate intelligence required to safeguard UK interests including safeguarding marine ecosystems and drive global climate action.”