HR: 13:40h
AN: OS53A-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Using the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System for Preliminary Characterization of the Seasonal and Interannual Variability of the Gulf of Maine Coastal Current System
AU: * Pettigrew, N R
EM: nealp@maine.edu
AF: School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Libby Hall, Orono, ME 04469 United States
AB: The Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System (GoMOOS) has been established as a sustained, comprehensive, real-time, observing system that includes an array of moored physical and optical sensors, shore based long-range CODAR for surface current mapping, numerical circulation and wave modeling, satellite observations, and web delivery of data and data products. The GoMOOS moored array presently consists of 10 solar-powered, automated buoy systems that telemeter data hourly via cellular phone, iridium, or GOES satellite transmitters. The buoys are deployed within the major bays and estuaries of the Gulf, along the Continental Shelf from Nova Scotia to Massachusetts, in the Jordan Basin, and in the Northeast Channel, which represents the only pathway of exchange with the North Atlantic at depths exceeding 100 m. The first buoys were deployed in the summer of 2001, and the system is now beginning to provide time series long enough to provide an indication of seasonal and interannual variability of the flow and physical properties of the complex and little understood Gulf of Maine Coastal Current system. Preliminary analysis suggests a strong seasonal cycle and significant interannual variability that combine to produce previously unknown reversals of the typical southwestward flow of the coastal current.
DE: 4219 Continental shelf processes
DE: 4223 Descriptive and regional oceanography
DE: 4227 Diurnal, seasonal, and annual cycles
DE: 4299 General or miscellaneous
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting