The RV Investigator has supported Australia GO-SHIP to measure the ocean structure and capture change from the equator to Antarctica as part of Australia's contribution to the GO-SHIP global collaboration. The data from these voyages have been used to quantify the ocean changes and determine their contribution to sea level rise, the global carbon budget, changes to the hydrological cycle, and improved understanding of ocean processes (ocean mixing, water mass formation, subduction and obduction). They have quantified the rates of ocean heat and carbon uptake and been used to validate climate and earth system model simulations. Biological and omics data, collected on voyages since 2016, has used to determine the microbial diversity from the Southern Ocean to the Equatorial Ocean and show that ocean temperature is not the dominant environmental factor influencing diversity.
These observations have also contributed to significant freely available data collections and gridded products, and derived data products have supported international and national researchers and are used by researchers working on Argo Core, Biogeochemistry, and Deep floats to quality control the data and by other autonomous ocean platforms.