À quoi ressemblera demain la Flotte océanographique française ?

Following the evaluation of Ifremer and the FOF by the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education, and in the context of both rising costs and growing awareness in the scientific community about the importance of reducing research’s environmental footprint, Ifremer and the Fleet’s steering committee decided to modify the FOF resource renewal plan. So that the new plan would align with contemporary challenges, a forward-looking exercise was conducted with the help of the entire FOF user community, covering four main topics: • Research priorities and the scientific needs they engender • Exploration and observation technologies and the research vessels used to deploy them • Partnerships • Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions The first observation was that the scientific community has high expectations for the FOF and its exploration and observation capabilities. The FOF must continue to provide support for research priorities, including basic as well as applied topics. One of the first challenges is to better understand the complex relationships between the ocean and the global climate system. We must be able to describe the changes currently underway and study their effects on ocean ecosystems and the human societies intertwined with them. The ocean, the cryosphere, and the biogeochemistry of these environments are all undergoing massive and fastmoving transformations that must be better anticipated. These changes could affect our societies in a number of fundamental ways. What will happen to our food security, to the sustainability of our use of fisheries resources, to the coastal areas facing flood risks? We need research vessels and on-site observation to collect the data that will help answer these questions. The FOF has a central role in this global effort. Research reconstructing paleoclimates is essential in our era of climate change. Given that the Earth’s climate history is written in layers of sediment in the ocean's depths, the FOF is an extraordinary asset, nearly one of a kind, for accessing these ancient sediments that give us a glimpse of what our world was like more than a million years ago. The FOF hands scientists the keys to the knowledge that they need to recreate the past and develop climate models of the future. The more finetuned these models are, the better we will be able to anticipate climate changes to come. Geological and geophysical knowledge of the ocean's crust, which covers about two thirds of our planet, raises fundamental questions about mid-ocean ridges and subduction zones, and more generally about our planet’s dynamics. Our ability to predict hazardous events that could put populations in serious danger (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, flooding, and tsunamis) is directly dependent on the continuation of our efforts to observe, monitor, and deepen our knowledge of these phenomena. Finally, our knowledge of the diverse life-forms teeming in the ocean remains patchy. The ocean has not been explored to nearly the same extent as terrestrial biomes. Describing the ocean biome in full means identifying its components and their distributions, analyzing the relationships between them, and evaluating their interactions with the ocean’s physical features, with the lithosphere, and with the atmosphere. Here, we have much more to learn. Aside from its importance to basic science, this knowledge is necessary to anticipate the consequences of global climate change, and more generally all impacts of human activity. To pursue these grand scientific quests, the FOF must be deployed throughout the world’s oceans, especially along the seabed and in regions of the world that are particularly sensitive to changes and pressures (e.g., the Mediterranean and the polar and tropical zones). It is also necessary to continue collecting data over the long term through observatories, for which FOF support is essential.  Furthermore, the FOF is a key source of data for ocean-related public policies and maintains close ties with the French Navy. Given the speed at which global climate change and human pressures are transforming ecosystems, monitoring of these ecosystems and fished populations remains a priority and will continue drawing on FOF resources. Dialogue with the French Navy must continue or even increase in the context of (for example) the recently adopted strategy for control over seabeds. The FOF will therefore need to continue meeting a diverse variety of expectations in the realms of scientific research, data for ocean-related public policies, and partnership with the French Navy. When considering technological possibilities as well as scientific needs, there are several ways in which FOF vessels and submersibles could evolve. Regarding the research vessels, the FOF must continue renewing its fleet of coastal, regional, and deep-sea vessels. Replacing deep-sea vessels presents an opportunity to add vessels with a lower carbon footprint to the fleet—vessels that will nevertheless be capable of deploying large equipment such as seafloor submersibles. The renewal of these systems will be marked by the modernization of the crewed submersible Nautile and ROV Victor 6000 as well as preparation for a new generation of deep-sea robots (due to arrive by 2035) and new lighter vehicles for shallower areas. The next decade should also see the arrival of a flotilla of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). The FOF will have to change its modus operandi regarding infrastructure access, vessel positioning forecasts, and mission planning, all while continuing to improve uptake of data collected on cruises. It will also be crucial to strengthen European and international partnerships. Given its absolute necessity for climate research and understanding the ocean, the FOF must serve as an example by minimizing its environmental impact while continuing to offer scientists a high level of service. It emits around 43,000 metric tons CO2eq per year (from pre-cruise preparation all the way to storage of the collected data). Fuel consumption accounts for 71% of these emissions. Even though the FOF’s carbon footprint is modest in light of the broader context (it represents 0.5% of France’s maritime sector emissions), it must nevertheless be reduced. This will be a tremendous challenge that can only be overcome by changing FOF practices as well as the vessels themselves, and by allocating funds to this transition. In the years to come, several developments may enable us to reduce the FOF's carbon footprint: use of shore power, introduction of biofuels, slow steaming, and optimization of vessels’ worldwide deployment. Starting in 2030, decarbonization will intensify when new deep-sea vessels enter the fleet. An initial hybrid windpowered/electric deep-sea vessel must be built as soon as possible to replace R/V L’Atalante. This will, first of all, preserve the fleet’s capacity to take action and perform scientific missions around the globe and in the depths of the ocean. Secondly, it will mark a significant milestone in the fleet’s decarbonization process