Carly, UR - shiver of sharks

Good day every one!  Let's start out with a question I received this past week from Janice, section 101:

Hi Carly, what a cool project. Would you mind telling me more about the websites you are using to collect your data from? How did you find them and what kind of data can you get? Other stuff if it's important.

WindyTV and all of the options

 Thank you for the question Janice!  So, the websites I am using are WindyTV and OCEARCH. I was introduced to WindyTV from our professor, Dr. Woodall, OCEARCH was a site I found years ago while surfing the web.  WindyTV is a site that shows all different kinds of data: wind speeds, cloud coverage, rain, snow, swells, and a slew of things in between.  The most important data it shows me is sea surface temperature (sst), a current and monthly average of both.

OCEARCH with pings and profile of CubsWin

OCEARCH on the other hand is a website for an organization that goes out of expeditions to tag different species of sharks.  Their site shows the 'pings' of each individual shark with their own profiles.  There are search options for different times, species, locations, etc.  The 'pings' are where the tag the shark has on its dorsal fin has surfaced and it relays time, date, and location to a satellite.
So, what I do with this data is match the location of a shark ping with an approximate location on WindyTV to get the current and average sst of that area.

I hope that answered your question Janice!  If you have any other questions or specifications you would like to know please feel free to ask!

Now, on to the past week of data collecting.  I'm starting to get faster at recording the data and approximating locations, which is nice.  Something I'm starting to notice is an average range of sst from about 18 C to 21 C among all the species, but the different species (White, Mako, Blue, and Tiger) are all different.  For example, the White sharks are hanging out by the coasts right now while the Blue sharks are out in the middle of the Atlantic.  Those are the only trends I'm noticing so far, if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask!

Fins and grins,
Carly