QINGDAO, July 4 (Xinhua) -- China's comprehensive research vessel KEXUE departed from Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province Saturday for an estimated 40-day mission in the western Pacific, marking the 15th voyage of a shared research cruise that began in 2010.
The expedition brings together scientists from more than 10 institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ocean University of China, Sun Yat-sen University and Xiamen University. Their work will center on two major questions: how the western Pacific's currents and warm pool influence regional and global climate, and how the region's complex geology has evolved over time.
Research will span air-sea interaction, physical oceanography, marine biology, chemistry and seafloor geology.
The cruise is expected to obtain a wealth of valuable in-situ observation data and physical samples, which will be critical for advancing our understanding of ocean dynamics and climate variability, said Wang Fan, director of the Institute of Oceanology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS), which organizes the cruise, at a seeing-off ceremony for the vessel whose name means science in English.
To address the scientific objectives of this voyage, the research team will deploy an integrated observation system that combines fixed buoys and moorings, mobile underwater gliders, and ship-based transect surveys.
A buoy is capable of continuously monitoring the atmosphere, the upper ocean, and air-sea heat fluxes, while the mooring enables long-term continuous observation of dynamic processes throughout the full ocean water column, Wang Jianing, chief scientist of the project at IOCAS, told Xinhua.
"Working in coordination with mobile gliders and shipboard instruments, they will significantly enhance our observational capability -- from fixed transects to regional coverage, and from single-point profiles to three-dimensional networked observations," he said.
A highlight of the expedition is the official naming of the self-developed buoy and mooring systems as "LangYa," which are designed to work in tandem with IOCAS's AI-powered LangYa ocean large model.
They will form a deep-sea intelligent sensing and service framework based on "edge-to-cloud collaboration and smart-data fusion," said Wang Jianing.
In early June, IOCAS released the LangYa 2.0 large model, a major upgrade that moves beyond basic sea variables to predict complex marine phenomena including typhoons, extreme rainfall and storm surges.
Wang Fan explained that the real-time oceanographic data collected by the LangYa buoy-mooring system will feed into the LangYa new model, helping it make more accurate predictions, enable intelligent early warnings for marine hazards, and support deep-sea operations.
This move signals that China's deep-sea research and marine forecasting are accelerating into a new era of the deep fusion of real-time sensing and intelligent computing, the IOCAS director said.
The western Pacific is a critical region affecting China's weather, climate, and maritime shipping safety. Over the past 15 years, the shared cruise program has proved highly effective, as more than 1,100 observation stations in the sea have been completed, and annual time-series data along key sections now stretch back up to 14 years.
"China has developed a mature and stable western Pacific observation framework," said Wang Fan.
He added that the long-term data collected will support shipping safety, climate change response and the exploration of deep-sea resources and environmental management. ■
