Saildrone has won a funding grant of over US$1 million/€1 million from the Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate.
The grant is for Saildrone to continue collecting data in the Gulf Stream. The importance of the project is that with more detailed yearly data from the Gulf Stream, scientists can produce better weather forecasts, and more importantly, global carbon budgets can be set much more accurately.
The project will allow the launch of six Saildrone Explorers, uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs), which will spend up to 12 months in the Gulf Stream collecting data 24/7 while leaving a minimal environmental impact.
According to the head of Google.org for EMEA and APAC, Rowan Barnett:
“We received an overwhelming number of applications to the Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate and are excited to be supporting Saildrone with funding and expertise from Google. Weather is becoming more extreme, and as a society, we must get better and smarter at predicting it in order to protect our communities. We are enthusiastic about the potential for this project to leverage technology to contribute towards that goal.”
You can find out more information here.
