Saildrone's El Niño Mission Launches From Alameda Point
Every summer, Saildrone preps its ocean going robots in a hangar at Alameda Point. This year, they are chasing one of the strongest El Niños in years.
By The Alameda Pulse
Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now, a small fleet of orange, wind powered robots built at Alameda Point is measuring water temperatures nobody has tracked this closely before. Saildrone, the ocean tech company based in a historic hangar at the former Naval Air Station, shipped its uncrewed vehicles to Hawaii this month to start a four month mission tracking this year's El Niño.
What Saildrone's Ocean Drones Actually Do
The vehicles look more like small sailboats than robots. Each one is 23 feet long with a 16 foot wing instead of a normal sail, and it never needs to refuel because it runs entirely on sun and wind. Onboard sensors, 15 of them, collect 20 data points every second as the drones sail themselves across the open ocean.
The mission launched from Oahu in August and runs through December, all in the name of tracking an El Niño pattern that scientists say could be an unusually strong one.
- Mission length: four months, wrapping up in December
- Distance covered: more than 3,000 miles across the equatorial Pacific
- Vehicle size: 23 feet long, with a 16 foot wing
- Data collected: 20 points per second from 15 onboard sensors
Why an Alameda Point Company Is Tracking El Niño
This is Saildrone's eighth year in a row sending vehicles out to study El Niño, working alongside NOAA scientists who help plan where the drones sail. "Having an unprecedented El Niño is more than just a headline for us," said Cristina Castillo, a senior program manager at Saildrone. "It is literally an unprecedented opportunity to collect data that has never been collected before."
Meghan Cronin, an oceanographer with NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, said the drones fill a gap that ships and satellites can't. "It is really a useful platform for looking at these developing events like this El Niño," she said.
An Alameda Point Company Most Residents Don't Know About
It's easy to think of Alameda Point mostly for its Navy history or the proposed Oakland Roots stadium, but companies like Saildrone have quietly been building ocean technology inside its old hangars for years. If you're curious what else is happening around the old base, the Pulse events page tracks what's open to the public.
El Niño years tend to bring wetter winters to California, so the data these drones collect over the next four months could end up shaping the forecasts for our own rainy season here in Alameda.
Source: ktvu.com (opens in a new tab)
