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Storm-tossed Seas

September 28, 2016

With a storm on the horizon, the ocean is probably the last place you want to put your valuable instruments. Patrick Deane (left) and Sean Whelan did just that, launching an autonomous glider into the water south of Cape Cod ahead of post-tropical storm Hermine recently. The robotic vehicle gathered salinity, temperature, and water velocity data as the storm passed as part of the TEMPESTS program, a multi-institutional effort to better understand how ocean-atmosphere interactions affect intensity as a storm moves over the ocean and how the ocean is affected by the passage of a large storm.(Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)