Tracking the Global Ocean Circulation with Adrift

adriftscreenshot

Via hyperallerigic.com:

Want to know where your message in a bottle will turn up or track down the path of local floating pollution? Welcome to adrift, a website inspired by research into ocean circulation by Dr Erik Van Sebille and the delightful book Moby Duck.

Here you can explore how all kinds of objects drift through the ocean – from rubber duckies to plastic pollution – and where each object might end up if it is washed out to sea from your beach.

The website uses a scientific method that is based on observed tracks revealed by buoys in the Global Drifter Program and other scientific research in this field. On this website you can see where ocean-going debris travelled after the Fukushima disaster or the path rubber ducks may have taken after the famous Friendly Floaties spill revealed in Moby Duck.

Try for yourself here.


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1 Comment

  1. Our project (which has a whole bunch of Adafruit in it by the way!) has been drifting for a few weeks now, seemingly disabled. If not for the SPOT tracker we’d have no way of knowing where it is.

    In case you want to track the $3k “bottle” in real time, there’s a page at http://gotransat.com/tracking that’s updated every 12 hours.

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