Climate models predict a decrease in oceanic dissolved oxygen and a thickening of the oxygen minimum zone, associated with global warming. Comprehensive observational analyses of oxygen decline are challenging, given generally sparse historical data. The Newport hydrographic (NH) line off central Oregon is one of the few locations in the...
MicroSoar, an undulating profiler capable of measuring turbulence parameters such as Thorpe scales and thermal dissipation rate while being towed at speeds of up to 4 m s⁻¹, offers the possibility of obtaining a close-to-synoptic image of mixing over large spatial areas. In this paper, the method of calculating Thorpe...
As part of the Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) project Coastal Ocean Advances in Shelf Transport (COAST), this was the second of two cruises in 2001 to study cross-shelf transport processes in a wind-driven coastal ocean. The project includes field experiments off the Oregon coast and coordinated ocean circulation/ecosystem and atmospheric...
As part of the Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) project Coastal Ocean Advances in Shelf
Transport (COAST), this was the first of two cruises in 2001 to study cross-shelf transport
processes in a wind-driven coastal ocean. The project includes field experiments off the Oregon
coast and coordinated ocean circulation/ecosystem and atmospheric...
Small-scale turbulence is a random phenomenon, and theoretical relationships about turbulent processes are often only crude approximations. There are relatively few accurate statements that can be made about a turbulent flow without recourse to experimental evidence from flow itself (Tennekes and Lumley, 1972). In the atmosphere, turbulent flows are relatively...
Two physical oceanography cruises on the R/V Endeavor were conducted by the co-PIs Jack Barth and Mike Kosro as part of the ONR-sponsored Coastal Mixing and Optics (CMO) Accelerated Research Initiative. The objective was to rapidly survey a region around 40.5N, 70.5W where a set of moorings and a stationary...
Currently, forecasts produced by the Oregon-Washington (OR-WA) Coastal Ocean Forecast System are constrained by assimilation of only surface observations. The 4-dimensional variational (4DVAR) data assimilation (DA) algorithm is utilized to combine the model and the data, with the time-independent forecast ("background'') error covariance B. In this study, two possible improvements...
From mid-May to August 2011, extreme runoff in the Columbia River ranged from 14,000 to over 17,000 m³/s, more than two standard deviations above the mean for this period. The extreme runoff was the direct result of both melting of anomalously high snowpack and rainfall associated with the 2010–2011 La Niña....
A new high-frequency turbulence measuring instrument, MicroSoar, has been developed, tested, and used to make scalar variance dissipation rate measurements. MicroSoar was mounted on the undercarriage of SeaSoar, a depth-programmable winged platform, and towed by a ship, at speeds up to 7 kt, in a depth range of the sea...
The primary objectives of R/V Wecoma cruise W9907C were to: 1) collect threedimensional fields of temperature, salinity, and light absorption and attenuation using the towed, undulating vehicle SeaSoar; 2) collect 3-D fields of velocity using shipboard ADCP; 3) to make turbulence profiles along a single cross-shelf transect; and 4) locate,...
During fall/winter off the Oregon coast, oceanographic surveys are relatively scarce because of rough
weather conditions. This challenge has been overcome by the use of autonomous underwater gliders deployed
along the Newport hydrographic line (NH-Line) nearly continuously since 2006. The discharge from the
coastal rivers between northern California and the...
The commercial groundfish fishing industry and groundfish research have a long concurrent history of activity on the Oregon continental margin. Within the non-whiting groundfish fishery, the target species are primarily flatfishes, sablefish, lingcod, and rockfishes, though landings of each have fluctuated over time. Recent work shows that over the past...