AXBT launch

U.S. Coast Guard 1st Class Petty Officer Steve Jayne, a reservist who works as a senior scientist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, deploys a several Air-Launched Autonomous Micro-Observer profiling floats, commonly referred to as ALAMO, during Tropical Storm Erika over the Gulf of Mexico, Aug. 28,2015 . The ALAMO is an upgrade from the Airborne eXpendable BathyThermographs, or AXBTs. The ALAMO provides more temperature profiles than the AXBT, but both send data by a radio signal from the ocean surface while diving down 800 meters into the water. This summer Jayne worked with the Naval Academy's Training and Research in Oceanic and Atmospheric Processes in Tropical Cyclones, or TROPIC, program, which is doing research to determine how the relationship between the ocean and a hurricane can improve forecasts of storm track and intensity. (U.S. Air Force photo/Maj. Marnee A.C. Losurdo)