We have just completed our first cruise from the mouth of the Cape Fear into the Gulf Stream region. We went from winter to summer and back to winter again all in 3 days. HUGE thanks to the Captain and crew of RV Cape Hatteras for the expert navigation and deck work to get us out there and back all safe and sound. I have also never participated in such an interdisciplinary cruise. I learned so much from my colleagues, collaborators and students! Niskin bottles rinsed and ready for the next one.
A full day of work on the water yesterday as we deployed our array for the 6th installment of our project around Frying Pan Shoals (5 landers, 2 wave buoys). As always, I am incredibly grateful to our team of technicians and divers to get these landers off the boat and into the water! Special shout-out to sister vessel RV Seahawk who were concurrently sampling the stations. Note, the shrimp trawler is NOT RV Seahawk.
Dr. Emma Nuss has published her paper in JGR: Oceans! Using FUNWAVE-TVD simulations of transient rip currents on a barred beach, Emma found that the bar enhances both the generation of vorticity and the eddy-eddy interactions that lead to transient rip currents. The overall effect is that an increased directionally spread wave field does not always increase the transient rip current activity. Yikes! Some modifications to our previously published relations are now in order. Check out the paper here.
Our paper on shallow internal waves is published! The research documented internal waves at the mouth of Waitati inlet. Although we were interested in what goes in/out of Waitati, that topic was published years ago. This “offshore” story has taken awhile to finish, but I am very happy to have it out. We had a grand time doing the work and I thought it appropriate to post some pictures (Otago summer, 2018). From hallway mooring construction to cruising in RV Tūhura, oceanography delivers again.
Emma Nuss defended her PhD thesis, “An investigation of surf-zone vorticity using phase-resolved numerical modeling and eddy tracking.” Combining numerical model output with image processing and machine learning tools, Emma has introduced a wonderful eddy-focused perspective for transient surf-zone vorticity. Her terrific defense presentation included the following enduring images, carousels spun by breaking surface waves and a clustering demo with your favorite desserts. Congratulations, Dr. Nuss!
Thank you to the OOIFB and Pioneer Array data team for a terrific workshop this week in Norfolk, VA. The workshop provided an overview of the data, science and outreach opportunities offered by the array, relocated to our backyard earlier this year (see this link for details from OOI). I see PA as the closest thing to a particle accelerator or large telescope facility that our oceanographic research community has access to.
It will be exciting to integrate and compare our upcoming TEAL-SHIPS results with PA collections and continue to make regional connections. Some preliminary analysis courtesy of the Global Drifter Program surface floats suggests a ~10 day time scale for surface material from near the TEAL-SHIPS transect (see the magenta line in the above plot) to arrive at the array.
In regions where surface ocean CO2 concentration is less than the atmosphere, the ocean functions as a net sink for atmospheric carbon. How strong is this sink and what determines it?
Dr. Jesse Vance has published one of his thesis chapters where a 20 year shipboard time series of pCO2 is combined with satellite and ocean model data to show that advection of gradients by ocean currents contributes significantly to the seasonal to decadal time scale of variability in the strength of this sink. Click this link for the full article.
Along with several UNCW colleagues and UNC system partners, our proposal to sample the waters of the Cape Fear river plume out to the Gulf Stream has been funded! We have named the project Transect Expedition To Assess Land-To-Sea Habitats Via Interdisciplinary Process Studies (TEAL-SHIPS), and will be collecting measurements in collaboration with the Cape Fear Community College research vessel, the RV Cape Hatteras. Many more details to come over the next several years as we get this project underway.
What a week here in Wilmington! We completed our 3rd successful deployment around Frying Pan Shoals and UNCW CMS hosted an OOI Data Lab. I am very grateful for the Operations staff here who completed the recovery operation in record time.
Second, what a treat to see Kim Albins again! As lead PISCO technician, Kim was instrumental in helping me deploy/recover moorings for my thesis research at OSU circa 2009 – 2012. She is now a faculty member at the University of Mobile (welcome to Academia!). From sea-otter to sea-hawk, I figured some flashback photos were in order:
Dr. Erik Johnson has just published his excellent analysis on how river-sourced water becomes entrained and exported by the Southland Current off of Otago. The combination of discharge strength and wind direction combine to create distinct modes of offshore export and then alongshore transport. Check it out in Continental Shelf Research here!
