Coastal ocean processes inner-shelf study : coastal and moored physical oceanographic measurements

Abstract

To improve our understanding of the physical and biological processes influencing plantonic larval distributions over the inner shelf, an interdisciplinary field program funded by the National Science Foundation's Coastal Ocean Processes program (CoOP) was conducted near Duck, North Carolina in the southern porton of the Middle Atlantic Bight. The field program took place from August to December, 1994 and included both moored and shipboard measurements of physical, biological and sedimentological variables. This report summarizes the observations from one component of this field program, a moored array of physical oceanographic and meteorological instruments. This component of the field program consisted of a cross-shelf array of three surface/subsurface mooring pairs in 13 m, 20 m and 25 m of water supporting instruments to measure currents, temperature and conductivity, a suite of meteorological instruments on surface buoys at the 20 -m and 25 -m site, and an along-shelf array of temperature, conductivity and bottom pressure sensors mounted on jetted pipes along the 5-m isobath and on moorings along the 20-m isobath. The report includes descriptions of the cross-shelf and along-shelf arrays, the four types of instruments used (VAWRs, VMCMs, SeaCats, and SeaGauges), and the data return from the field program. Statistical and graphical summaries of the atmospheric (wind, air temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, short- and long-wave radiation), and oceanic (current, water temperature, conductivity and bottom pressure) measurements are presented.