HR: 15:30h
AN: OS23H-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Ocean Observing Science: A New View of the Gulf of Maine
AU: * Pettigrew, N R
EM: nealp@maine.edu
AF: University of Maine, School of Marine Sciences, Orono, ME 04469, United States
AU: Deese, H
EM: hdeese@gmail.com
AF: University of Maine, School of Marine Sciences, Orono, ME 04469, United States
AB: A comprehensive, real-time, ocean 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, and satellite observations began operations in 2001. At the heart of the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System is an array twenty two real-time, solar-powered oceanographic data buoys that are rotated at eleven monitoring sites in the Gulf. Buoys are located at sites chosen for the monitoring of major inflows and the principal features of the gulf-scale circulation. Additional buoys are deployed within the major bays and estuaries of the Gulf, where they monitor location conditions and gulf/bay exchanges. The Gulf of Maine is a harsh environment that has presented numerous challenges to the in situ observing system. However, the buoy array has evolved into a very reliable real-time system that has delivered time-series measurements long enough to provide the first indications of seasonal cycles and significant interannual variability that combine to produce previously unrecorded reversals of the canonical Gulf of Maine circulation features and contribute to major hydrographic anomalies that affect large regions of the Gulf last for several years.
DE: 4217 Coastal processes
DE: 4262 Ocean observing systems
DE: 4500 OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL
DE: 4594 Instruments and techniques
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly