Reprinted from the Engineer:  http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/analysis/sea-view/1001465.article

Sea view

22 March 2010 | By Ellie Zolfagharifard

On 11 June 1930, William Beebe and his companion Otis Barton crammed themselves into a 7ft hollow steel ball of questionable integrity to descend a quarter of a mile into the dark depths of the ocean.

Built on the basis of a napkin sketch by Theodore Roosevelt, the ’bathysphere’ was the first vehicle to give man a glimpse of what was previously thought to be a lifeless soup of dark water. The resulting account of a world of shifting light and bizarre sea creatures captured people’s imaginations and began an era of ocean exploration.

But despite the extensive advances in technology since the rudimentary two-tonne bathysphere, few locations on Earth remain as remote or mysterious. The continued lack of knowledge about the world’s watery depths has only increased people’s fascination, and unlocking the oceans’ secrets is regarded as an important step towards addressing major worldwide concerns over energy and climate change.

Dr Ralph Rayner, a research fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), believes that a lack of understanding in ocean processes could undermine the validity of climate-change science.