Researchers at the University of Delaware have attached sensors to sharks to track ocean conditions. Aaron Carlisle joins the AccuWeather Network to discuss how sharks can help forecast hurricanes.
00:00This is Aaron, our exclusive AccuWeather I-PATH, which not a whole lot of strengthening over the next couple of days, but then boom, we are talking about a major Category 3 hurricane.
00:10And you know, data is so critical to hurricane forecasting, not only in the atmosphere, but in the oceans.
00:18And with that, listen to this.
00:21Scientists have a new partner, sharks.
00:25How about that to help predict hurricanes?
00:27And researchers at the University of Delaware, I think they're the blue hens, yeah, the blue hens, are attaching sensors to sharks to track ocean conditions that could shape the next big storm.
00:42Joining us is Aaron Carlisle, assistant professor of marine biology.
00:48So sorry for that whole long introduction.
00:50You're just like sitting there and being like, can they ask me the questions already?
00:52Can we get past my name, please?
00:54Yeah.
00:54All right.
00:55So why use sharks to help predict hurricanes and how are you doing it?
01:00So thank you for having me.
01:02But like, yeah, like you said, it's all about data and we need more data.
01:05And so you saw that map of the hurricane and how it's moving up towards the east coast of the U.S.
01:10And there's those kind of potential range of movement patterns, that kind of gray shaded area.
01:15And the idea is that we need data from that whole area and particularly what's going on underneath the surface.
01:20So our idea is that we're going to use sharks basically carrying these ocean sensing tags that will basically record what's going on in the ocean wherever they're swimming.
01:30So utilizing the shark's natural behavior as they swim up and down through the water column, recording the ocean heat content, things like that.
01:39And when it comes to the surface, they transmit real time data.
01:42And so we can get those data in real time and those get incorporated in those models that then help inform those predictions like you just saw.
01:48And hopefully that'll end up narrowing those projected route of those of those hurricane maps.
01:54I think everybody's wondering about this next question.
01:57At least I was.
01:58I was.
01:59We talked about the size of the sensors we're going to talk about, but how do you attach it to them?
02:05And how do you stay away from getting hurt and hurting the sharks actually, too?
02:10Yeah, absolutely.
02:11Carefully is the answer for everyone, for us and for the animals.
02:14So we want the animals to be happy and healthy, right?
02:16Otherwise, they don't give us good data and these tags cost money.
02:20And so we do it like we catch and tag any sharks.
02:23We basically go out.
02:23We look for them.
02:24We put out chum.
02:25They get attracted to the boat and we basically just catch them, secure them next to the boat.
02:29And once you actually put a tail rope around them and string them out next to the side of the boat, they are very docile.
02:34And then we just get our team kind of jumps into action like a pit crew and we secure the tag to the tip of the dorsal fin.
02:41And the idea is that that tag will stay on for several months, probably before it falls off.
02:45And then the shark should swim off on its merry way.
02:48Only a marine biologist would say that a shark is very docile.
02:51Docile, yeah.
02:51All right.
02:51What are the early results?
02:53And how could this help improve storm forecast?
02:57So we're still in kind of the early days.
02:59We're just getting some of these first generation of tags out and collecting data.
03:03And every time we put a tag out, we're learning more about how to improve it.
03:06So this is still in the discovery stage and the method development stage to a large extent.
03:10We're getting good data.
03:12We're getting profiles.
03:13We're getting the kinds of data we want.
03:15Now it's just tweaking the tags, their design, how they're programmed to operate more efficiently, given how dynamic sharks are compared to most other marine species.
03:24They just go all over the place.
03:25Their vertical movements are really dynamic and kind of chaotic.
03:27And so basically we've shown that it works, and it's basically now we're trying to improve it where we can operationalize it and use this as a tool for ocean observing around the world, really, not just the U.S.
03:40And how many sharks now are you tracking, and what's the goal, and is anyone else out there doing something similar?
03:47Sure, there's plenty of people doing tagging, absolutely.
03:51And so the only difference between what we're doing is the kinds of tags we're putting on, which are focused and designed to really collect high-quality oceanographic data.
04:01And so right now we have a handful of sharks swimming around.
04:04We've tagged a few blue sharks and a few short-fin mako sharks.
04:08And they're currently swimming around.
04:10We get data.
04:10We're getting positions intermittently over time.
04:12And so right now we don't have a lot of data coming in because, again, those tweaking everything, getting it to work well.
04:19But the idea is over the next year or two we're going to start scaling up these deployments where we get a broader distribution of animals.
04:26So in that map, kind of thinking about the map you're looking at, you can imagine if there is a fleet of sharks swimming around in front of that hurricane,
04:31they're going to be sending data that then you can use to understand and predict where that hurricane is going to go and how strong it's going to be.
04:38Fascinating.
04:39I'm absolutely blown away.
04:40Aaron Carl, our assistant professor of marine biology at the University of Delaware.
04:44Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
