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Short abstract

Global visions of ocean-based green transitions meet patchy scientific realities at sea. Drawing on ethnography from two research expeditions, this paper examines how marine scientists navigate these frictions as environmental futures become material onboard research vessels.

Long abstract

The global ocean is critical for the Earth system, increasingly positioned as central to

environmental solutions, envisioned as green transitions toward resilient futures. Marine research

has been given a leading role in addressing these transitions through international science policy

initiatives, which tend to promote large-scale (techno)solutions, mirroring trends in marine policy

towards initiatives prioritizing global monitoring and modelling of the world ocean, e.g., the Digital

Twin Ocean.

Yet, the ocean, and the marine science endeavoring to understand it, are also local: a collage of

innumerable spaces, places, and happenings, from regional models (Askin et al., 2025) to rewilding

projects of endangered coral reefs. Examining the frictions between global desires for bluer

futures (oftentimes in the form of policy expectations for specific, widely applicable solutions) and

local, ‘patchy’ realities of doing marine science remains essential to understanding the current

crises (Tsing et al., 2024).

Onboard a research vessel, these frictions intensify: time is compressed (Parker & Hackett, 2012)

and marine researchers are confronted first-hand with the local aquatic realities, pulled from the

ocean. We explore two expeditions, geological and biological, concerned with intervening in

environmental futures tied to the green energy transition to investigate how these frictions unfold

in practice. We describe the local, ‘ship’-floor realities faced by marine scientists navigating these

frictions in real time, examining how they negotiate conflicting ideals of (resilient) oceanic futures

made material onboard. In doing so, we consider the broader implications for the practical and

political complexities of researching environmental solutions in the ocean.