Sea turtles tagged with location and temperature sensors have been used to gather data on water temperatures near hurricanes, which could help us better forecast how strong such storms will be.
Hurricanes are difficult to model in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, a coastal region that runs along the eastern US from around New York to North Carolina, because the waters there are highly stratified in summer, with warm water at the surface and cold water far below.
鈥淭he hurricane forces ahead of the eye cause the stratified water to mix, which cools the surface water,鈥� says Leah Crowe at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration鈥檚 Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Models of hurricane intensity don鈥檛 account for this 鈥渁head-of-eye cooling鈥� as it is hard to obtain water temperature data during storms, especially beneath the surface. Hurricanes source their energy from warm water so lower temperatures reduce their strength.
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That鈥檚 where the turtles come in. Crowe鈥檚 colleagues tagged 26 loggerhead turtles in the mid-Atlantic during the summer of 2011 鈥� these turtles are known to forage in the Mid-Atlantic Bight during hurricane season. When Hurricane Irene struck in August of that year, 18 of the turtles came within 80 kilometres of the eye of the storm.
As they dove from the surface to the depths, they logged temperatures throughout the water column, finding cooled sea surface temperatures and vertical mixing of different water temperatures.
Until now, this data came from sources such as autonomous underwater gliders and ship-borne instruments. The turtles cover a large area and their measurements will improve models of ocean temperature, says Crowe. This kind of data could boost the accuracy of hurricane forecasts.
鈥淟ack of near real-time measurements of upper ocean temperature and salinity is one of the major impediments to better hurricane intensity forecasts,鈥� says Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 鈥淚n practice, we do not get this information from satellites and rely on very sparse direct measurements. Getting such data from aquatic life strikes me as a good idea.鈥�
Movement Ecology
