HR: 1340h
AN: OS43B-0571    [Abstracts]
TI: The VIMS CBOS Observing System Buoy, an Initial Scientific Analysis
AU: * Brasseur, L H
EM: lbrass@vims.edu
AF: Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William and Mary Box 1346, Gloucester Point, VA 23062 United States
AU: Brubaker, J M
EM: brubaker@vims.edu
AF: Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William and Mary Box 1346, Gloucester Point, VA 23062 United States
AU: Friedrichs, C T
EM: cfried@vims.edu
AF: Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William and Mary Box 1346, Gloucester Point, VA 23062 United States
AU: Wright, L D
EM: wright@vims.edu
AF: Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William and Mary Box 1346, Gloucester Point, VA 23062 United States
AB: The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) has recently deployed a data buoy at Gloucester Point, York River, Virginia as part of the Chesapeake Bay Observing System (CBOS). The data streams collected by the buoy and its associated sensors are wind speed and direction, incoming solar radiation, air temperature, water temperature, salinity, turbidity, fluorescence, and dissolved oxygen. In addition, water velocities throughout the water column are recorded every 5 minutes and wave statistics including directional wave spectra are calculated every hour from an upward looking RD Instruments Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) in 8 meters of water in conjunction with the data buoy. All data are collected in real time and are available to scientists with a 15 minute to 1 hour time lag. These data are used in conjunction with other long tem data sets in the York River and lower Chesapeake Bay such as the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (CBNERR) sites' water quality data in the York River and USGS stream flow data to investigate several questions of scientific interest. One of these questions is the observed reverse salinity gradient in the York River during spring flood tides. It was previously thought that this was caused by a temporal mismatch in the phase of flood tide between the lower Chesapeake Bay and the mouth of the York River subestuary only during spring tides when the currents are strongest and the tidal range is large. In 2004, however, this effect can be seen during both spring and neap tides on several occasions in the spring and summer. This phenomenon and others are evaluated in the context of the VIMS observing system buoy and the initial data collected from the buoy are also evaluated in terms of instrument accuracy, ease of data retrieval, and possible uses for this information.
UR: http://www.vims.edu/~lbrass/
DE: 4227 Diurnal, seasonal, and annual cycles
DE: 4235 Estuarine processes
DE: 4294 Instruments and techniques
DE: 4594 Instruments and techniques
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting