Surfing for science: Smartfin collects data for climate change research

Posted February 26, 2018 07:16:32

Surfers are becoming citizen scientists by attaching fins to their boards that collect data from the ocean.

The Smartfin is fitted with a GPS, a circuit board, a Bluetooth chip, a rechargeable battery, and sensors that measure multiple ocean parameters including temperature, location, motion, and wave characteristics.

The fin collects data from the sea while surfers are out riding their boards.

The data is then uploaded into a smartphone app and becomes accessible in near real-time to the international scientific community.

Surfer and Southern Cross University researcher Renaud Joannes-Boyau said constant ocean monitoring would help a wide range of scientists, but particularly climate change researchers.

"Using the data collected with Smartfin, we'll be able to better understand trends in ocean warming and acidification and mobilise communities to take action to combat these problems caused by climate change," Dr Joannes-Boyau said.

"The coastal range is very hard to monitor because there's a lot of currents, movement, and it's really hard to follow the entire coast.

"The good thing is surfers go out continuously in one area.

"We thought it was a great idea to use people who love the ocean, and use the ocean every day, to be part of helping scientists monitor the ocean."

The Smartfin was designed by engineer Phil Bresnahan and coastal biogeochemist Tyler Cyronak from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of San Diego.

The fins have been in use in the US since May 2017, with a Californian chapter of the Surfrider Foundation distributing 50 Smartfins to local surfers.

Now Smartfin is collaborating with researchers at Southern Cross University to create a network of surf zone temperature sensors along the southern Queensland and northern New South Wales coasts.

The fin was introduced to Australian surfers at the Byron Bay Surf Festival at the weekend.

"The plan is to tap into the enthusiasm Australians have for both surfing and environmental awareness and create stoke around ocean health and climate change issues," Dr Joannes-Boyau said.

"We want surfers to surf for science."

Smartfin is a not-for-profit project. It costs nothing for surfers to participate or for scientists to gain access to the data.

Topics: surfing, oceans-and-reefs, climate-change, environmental-technology, byron-bay-2481