KEXUE, a comprehensive research vessel of China, 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 the 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.

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 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’ 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.”

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.

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.(Xinhua)