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Heading North

November 16, 2018

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Joleen Heiderich and WHOI engineer Patrick Deane deploy a Spray glider from a small boat off the coast of Miami. The robotic vehicle is the workhorse of a research program led by Heiderich’s advisor, WHOI scientist Robert Todd, that involves taking routine measurements of the Gulf Stream current along the U.S. East Coast. Spray gliders cruise up the east coast from Miami to Cape Cod over several months, surfacing every few hours to transmit their data back to Heiderich and Todd in Woods Hole, Mass. The information they collect helps the scientists study the Gulf Stream’s ability to transport heat northward. It can also help them understand how hurricanes affect the current as they pass over it. (Photo courtesy of Patrick Deane, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)