“If we can better predict the intensity, we can better predict the human impact,” said Scott M. Glenn, an oceanographer at Rutgers, “and that’s critical, especially in Asia, where so many people die when these typhoons make landfall.”

The mid-Atlantic experiment heralds a new direction in ocean research. Despite a network of ocean-observing satellites and several projects that have seeded the seas with data-logging buoys, the sheer size and complexity of the oceans still mask much of what goes on underwater. At a time when forecasts of storms, currents and the effects of climate change have never been needed more, the researchers hope their flotilla of gliders will provide a new perspective.

“We have satellites that give us wonderful maps of the ocean at the surface,” said Dr. Glenn, the leader of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System, one of the 16 research groups involved in the project. (It goes by the acronym Maracoos.) “But the ocean is 3D, and we want to explore what’s going on beneath the waves.”

The battery-powered gliders continually dive in long swooping curves, taking snapshots of the ocean’s temperature, currents and other features at a range of depths. They reach a maximum depth of roughly 650 feet, though they can be configured to go deeper; that is relatively shallow for most of the ocean, but more than deep enough for continental shelves, which are on average 460 feet below sea level and can extend from a few thousand feet to hundreds of miles offshore.