The Caribbean experiences the greatest impacts from hurricanes than anywhere else on earth. While predicting hurricane tracks has improved, it's still difficult to forecast storms' strength before making landfall. Ocean gliders fill this gap by gathering data on temperature and salinity (the fuel for hurricanes) throughout the water column, thus improving forecasters' ability to predict storm intensity.
Ocean gliders can remain deployed for many months while making repeated dives from 0 - 3,000 feet underwater.
The gliders have no motor but use an internal bladder to change its density to move up and down in the water column.
After each dive, the glider transmits its data to a satellite, then back to shore in real-time. This data is then used to improve the accuracy of hurricane forecast models.
2017 was a devastating hurricane season for the U.S. Virgin Islands. Two back-to-back category 5 hurricanes, Irma and Maria, passed over the small islands. In 2019 and again in 2020, Ocean Coastal Observing - Virgin Islands (OCOVI) has deployed pairs of gliders in U.S. Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands waters. As more gliders are being deployed, the greater our understanding of hurricane intensification will allow communities to better prepare for an approaching storm.
“when the boats are going away, the gliders are going into the hurricane, and they’re getting unique data like we’ve never seen before”