Looks like Jaws is on our team now.
Shark tracking, among the many new techniques for keeping an eye on the apex predators, may have “enormous untapped potential” for analyzing hurricanes and other major storm systems, new studies and experts say.
Sharks and other marine life are being fitted with micro-sized satellite tags, Florida Today heard from Tobey Curtis, study author and fishery management specialist for NOAA Fisheries in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Curtis explained: “They have the capability to capture these oceanographic data that can inform hurricane models, which is really cool … Then the data can get transmitted directly into the sort of oceanographic data pipeline and be available in the same places as all those traditional datasets.”
The practice, which began with tagging seals in the 1980s, isn’t yet perfect. Curtis notes of sharks, “We can’t make them swim in a grid pattern,” but the animals have one big advantage: they swim across currents, allowing more data collection.
Using sharks as meteorological instruments also proved successful in 2017 during Hurricane Irma, which pounded Florida and other Southern states. The predators were equipped with acoustic telemetry devices as the storm moved through the Miami region.
During landfall, many sharks — especially of the nurse, bull and great hammerhead variety, as opposed to larger species like tiger sharks —abandoned Biscayne Bay for deeper waters, says Florida Today, which noted previous research showing similar patterns in years past.
Sharks can also apparently distinguish between a merely bad weather system and a hurricane, notes Michael Heithaus, who researches sharks at Florida International University.
“You can get big pressure drops with thunderstorms, and we don’t see any evidence of them getting out of the system when the big thunderstorms come through,” Heithaus told the outlet.
Researchers say tagging even more sharks will “greatly improve” storm forecasting based on temperature changes.
They also can detect changes in water’s conductivity, as indicated by research conducted in 2007 off Long Island Sound and Jacksonville, providing a handy early warning system for bad weather.
All such data would be uploaded in real time to the Integrated Oceanographic Observation System, a major database of ocean currents and patterns.
“There’s a lot of data coming off the backs of animals that are going to be a part of that,” Heithaus said.
