Six Major Hurricanes have rocked Florida’s Gulf Coast in the past 8 years, including Ian, Helene and Milton.
“From 2017 to 2024 we have seen as many Category 4 and 5 landfalls [along the U.S. coastline] as we had in the period from 1960 to 2016,” explains Jennifer Hubbard, Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the Tampa National Weather Service.
"It doesn’t help with the fact that we’ve been seeing those higher Gulf water temperatures that have helped to fuel rapid intensification in recent years,” Hubbard said.
“Rapid intensification” officially happens when a hurricane’s wind speed increases by at least 35 mph in 24 hours. Take 2024’s Hurricane Milton for example. Milton exploded from a Cat. 1 to Cat. 5 in the span of 24 hours.
Its wind speed increased by 95 mph in that 24-hour period, the third highest rate of rapid intensification ever recorded.
We know that warmer sea surface temperatures are a driving factor in rapid intensification, but recent studies also suggest that surface salinity, or how salty the water is, could play a role. So how can we measure both at the same time?
That’s where Oceanscope comes in, a collaboration between Royal Caribbean and the University of Miami that has been gathering ocean and weather data from cruise ships for more than two decades.
“The ocean and atmosphere are a couple. They influence each other, of course,” explained Dr. Josefina Olascoaga, an Ocean Science professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School, who also works on the Oceanscope project.
Automated instruments on-board four Royal Caribbean ships measure weather and ocean conditions from wind and humidity to sea surface temperature and salinity. By providing weather and ocean conditions in real-time along the ship’s path, from the ocean surface to depths of more than 3,000 feet, scientists from NASA, NOAA and around the world can follow trends and track changes.
“The most important thing is the repetition and volume of data that we’re getting in certain areas,” explains Dr. Olascoaga.
Because the ships typically cruise the same route on a weekly or biweekly basis, they have collected extensive data over the past two decades from the Caribbean Sea, Galapagos, North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, exploring the delicate connection between the ocean, weather and climate.
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