Collaborative Research: Cross-shelf Transport and Alongshelf Exchange Processes in Regions of Multiple Mesoscale Fronts

将进行一项实地计划，以检查与哈特拉斯锋及其附近的哈特拉斯角附近的锋面有关的环流和密度场。主要的观测策略是部署两艘配备ADCP、波动CTD传感器和表面测绘CT传感器的研究船，以获取锋面上重复的高分辨率垂直剖面和水平表面速度场和密度场。此外，一个相对简单的一组测量将呈现在现场估计的垂直涡动扩散系数和附近的锋。计划进行夏季和冬季巡航，以应对季节性变化。这个实验将提供重要的新信息的流通和密度场与跨大陆架定向中尺度锋和相似尺度的近锋之间的相互作用。 这种锋面可能在沿岸海洋向岸和向海的跨大陆架迁移中发挥中心作用。这些测量将探讨特定的运输机制与哈特拉斯前在一个特别充满活力的地区高的现成的出口和相当大的shoreward运输，并允许锋面环流特征的动态分析。此外，还将确定空间和时间相关尺度，并估计与锋面相关的垂直涡动粘性的大小，从而为这一海洋学复杂区域今后的建模工作提供实质性信息。所获得的见解将与大陆架物质、营养物和体积收支的研究、具有重要商业意义的陆架产卵的生命史研究、这些活动包括保护依赖河口的物种，以及努力减少哈特拉斯角附近与商业捕捞有关的海洋哺乳动物死亡率。这项研究的结果将通过在国家会议上的发言和在经评审的期刊上发表的文章在科学界传播。两名研究生和一名本科生将参与支持计划的实地考察。通过Savidge博士继续参与国家海洋科学碗，海洋研究和教育联盟（CORE）组织的高中生问答比赛，以及Garwarkiewicz博士参与当地的科学和数学磁铁小学，他是董事会成员。

A field program will be conducted to examine the circulation and density fields associated with the Hatteras Front and its proximate fronts near Cape Hatteras. The primary observational strategy will be to deploy two research vessels equipped with ADCP, undulating-CTD sensors, and surface mapping CT sensors, to acquire repeated high resolution vertical sections and horizontal surface fields of velocity and density across the fronts. In addition, a relatively simple set of measurements will render in situ estimates of vertical eddy diffusion coefficients in and near the fronts. A summer and a winter cruise are planned to address seasonal variability. This experiment will provide important new information on the circulation and density fields associated with cross-shelf oriented mesoscale fronts and on interactions between proximate fronts of similar scale. Such fronts may play a central role in shoreward and seaward cross-shelf transport in the coastal ocean. These measurements will explore specific transport mechanisms associated with the Hatteras Front in a particularly energetic region of high off-shelf export and considerable shoreward transport, and permit a dynamical analysis of frontal circulation features. In addition, spatial and temporal correlation scales will be defined, and the magnitude of vertical eddy viscosity associated with the fronts will be estimated, thereby substantially informing future modeling efforts of this oceanographically complex region.The insights gained will be pertinent to studies of material, nutrient, and volume budgets on the continental shelf, to life-history studies of commercially important shelf-spawning, estuarine-dependent species, and to efforts to mitigate commercial fishing-related mortality of marine mammals near Cape Hatteras. The findings of this study will be disseminated through the scientific community through presentations at national meetings and articles published in refereed journals. Two graduate students and one undergraduate will participate in support of the planned field-work. Outreach to the K-12 community will also be possible, through Dr. Savidge's continuing involvement in the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, a question and answer contest for high-schoolers organized by the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE), and by Dr. Garwarkiewicz's involvement with his local Science and Math magnet elementary school, on whose Board of Directors he sits.