The best sensor is the one you’re already wearing
– Tini Scientific
Tini Scientific (https://tiniscientific.com) is an oceanographic sensor company working to develop unique and innovative tools and approaches for collecting, processing, storing, and disseminating ocean data.
We are so excited to be working with Tini Scientific on a recent project of theirs involving oceanographic data collected in Lake Washington using temperature and depth sensors on the Apple Watch Ultra.
A series of measurements taken between September 2023 and February 2024 tell us an interesting story about what’s happening just below the surface of the lake… The sunny and warm summer months heat the upper ~15 m of water to a downright balmy 18°C (~65°F), while the temperature at depth hovers around 8°C (~46°F). But then autumn rolls around with it’s windy days and decreased sunlight, and before you know it, BOOM: the water gets churned up and mixed around, and on top of that, there’s a lot less solar heating. Say goodby to that lovely warm layer. And say hello to a cold, and fairly uniformly mixed body of water.
The visualization below was generated in an ObservableHQ notebook environment. If you’d like to focus on any particular profile, you can click (or hover) on the timeline plot at the top to see that profile highlighted in the data plots (scroll down – there are three in all!).