From the killer shark of Jaws to the tornado-tossed predators of the Sharknado movies, films have long portrayed sharks as objects of summer fear. But when a shark cuts through the waters off the US East Coast, it now may be doing more than hunting. It may also be gathering data that helps scientists understand the potential intensity of a hurricane before it makes landfall.
University of Delaware researchers are testing whether sharks can serve as mobile, near-real-time ocean-data observers, carrying sensors that measure ocean conditions to inform oceanographic, atmospheric, and climate models.
These CTD tags are small electronic devices that measure ocean electrical conductivity -- a metric closely related to salinity -- as well as temperature and depth, as marine creatures to which they are attached swim and dive.
