Sea-faring robots may be the latest high-profile weapon in the fight against climate change, but are Chinese scientists letting the valuable data they produce go to waste?

Experts working on a major international ocean monitoring project think so - and have blamed the waste on the fact many researchers simply do not know it is free.

Launched at the start of the millennium, Argo is an ongoing and developing program aimed at keeping a regular check on the temperature and salinity of the Seven Seas with satellite-tracked, automated floats.