In his impressive “science fiction” article published in Oceanography in 1989, Henry Stommel anticipated a revolution in ocean observing capabilities, brought by the development of new mobile platforms and sensing systems. Looking back at Stommel’s article, we can now marvel at how much of what followed he had predicted. During the last years, one could witness growing activities with floats, gliders, and other AUVs throughout the world. Modern autonomous underwater vehicles allow to characterize the water column from both physical and biological points of view, across a continuum of space and time scales. Being able to periodically send the collected data via satellite telemetry to land stations, they provide observations which can be analysed in near-real time. These new autonomous platforms have significantly changed the way how experiments and observations, in both the coastal and open oceans, are carried out today.

This session provides an open forum for interdisciplinary discussions of the latest advances in oceanographic applications of autonomous underwater vehicles. We welcome contributions on all aspects of the scientific analysis of data collected with such platforms on the coastal, regional, basin, or global scales. Topics for this session include physical and biogeochemical variability of the ocean, ocean processes on different spatial and temporal scales (from ocean turbulence to basin-wide circulation), and interactions between the ocean, atmosphere and land. We also invite contributions on data management and integration, Observing Systems Simulation Experiments, and development of new instrumentation and sensors.