Teledyne Marine Pays Tribute to Doug Webb

Douglas Webb, an esteemed Oceanographer Emeritus from Woods Hole, MA, and founder of Teledyne Webb Research, received recognition for his lifelong contributions to science at the Teledyne Marine facility located in North Falmouth, MA, on June 5, 2024.

Teledyne staff members Clara Hulburt, Shea Quinn, and Clayton Jones delivered an informative and historical talk about Webb’s legacy as an engineer, scientist, innovator, and world changer.

Webb contributed significantly to developing low-frequency acoustic sound sources such as SOFAR, RAFOS, and Tonpilz for water mass tracking, long-range navigation, and tomography. He played a key role in the development of Vertical Current Meters (VCMs) to measure water chimney convection and profiling floats (ALACE). He commercialized this development (APEX) which became part of the ARGO program. He invented and developed the Teledyne Slocum gliders.

Webb pioneered the development of the buoyancy systems used in these floats and gliders, revolutionizing how scientists approach ocean data gathering. Argo is the most successful ocean observing program, contributing critical information about climate and sea level change.

Webb was also honored by Rutgers University’s undergraduate class of 2024 with a letter of appreciation after the Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership (RUCOOL) received the 2024 TOS Ocean Observing Award for innovation and excellence in sustained ocean observation at the 2024 Ocean Sciences Meeting, which was held in New Orleans, LA.

Following the presentation, Webb proceeded to tour the Teledyne Marine facility and was given an up-close view of “REDWING (Research and Education Doug Webb Inter-National Glider),” the Slocum Sentinel glider named in his honor which is about to commence the first-ever global circumnavigation by a subsea glider later this year.