By: Landon Mclaughlin, 2025 FL HTC intern
Ocean currents influence everything from weather patterns to red tide and fish distribution. However, ocean currents are incredibly complex, and thus often have been poorly understood. One of the main goals of the Ocean Circulation Lab at USF is understanding these currents, especially in Tampa Bay and the Gulf. The lab uses Lagrangian drifters to observe currents, which is a floating instrument with a GPS tracker. It is made to stick out of the water as little as possible, so it is only affected by water currents rather than wind currents.
IMAGE ABOVE: This is a plot of the test of the GPS system of the new drifters. The GPS was attached to the R/V Weatherbird, code is then used to plot the GPS data.
Ultimately, drifters are of high interest to the ocean circulation lab. However, conventional drifters can often be costly, up to $1,000 for one deployment. In this project, I am helping build new drifters that are cheaper and just as effective. We plan to use these drifters to track water currents in Tampa Bay. This allows for many more drifter deployments than before, allowing our knowledge of Tampa Bay’s water currents to expand greatly.