Description: © The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Perez, E., Ryan, S., Andres, M., Gawarkiewicz, G., Ummenhofer, C. C., Bane, J., & Haines, S. Understanding physical drivers of the 2015/16 marine heatwaves in the Northwest Atlantic. Scientific Reports, 11(1), (2021): 17623, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97012-0.

Description: The Northwest Atlantic, which has exhibited evidence of accelerated warming compared to the global ocean, also experienced several notable marine heatwaves (MHWs) over the last decade. We analyze spatiotemporal patterns of surface and subsurface temperature structure across the Northwest Atlantic continental shelf and slope to assess the influences of atmospheric and oceanic processes on ocean temperatures. Here we focus on MHWs from 2015/16 and examine their physical drivers using observational and reanalysis products. We find that a combination of jet stream latitudinal position and ocean advection, mainly due to warm core rings shed by the Gulf Stream, plays a role in MHW development. While both atmospheric and oceanic drivers can lead to MHWs they have different temperature signatures with each affecting the vertical structure differently and horizontal spatial patterns of a MHW. Northwest Atlantic MHWs have significant socio-economic impacts and affect commercially important species such as squid and lobster.

Description: The work was supported by a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Summer Student Fellowship (to E.P.) through the National Science Foundation (NSF) REU under grant OCE-1852460, a Feodor-Lynen Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the WHOI Postdoctoral Scholar program (to S.R.), NSF grants OCE-1924041 (to M.A.) and OCE-1851261 (to G.G.) and OCE-1558920 (to J.B. and H. Seim at the Univ. of North Carolina), ONR grant N-14-19-1-2646 (to G.G.), and the James E. and Barbara V. Moltz Fellowship for Climate-Related Research (to C.C.U.).

Description: © The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Seim, H., Savidge, D., Andres, M., Bane, J., Edwards, C., Gawarkiewicz, G., He, R., Todd, R., Muglia, M., Zambon, J., Han, L., & Mao, S. Overview of the Processes driving Exchange at Cape Hatteras Program. Oceanography, (2022), https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2022.205.

Description: The Processes driving Exchange At Cape Hatteras (PEACH) program seeks to better understand seawater exchanges between the continental shelf and the open ocean near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. This location is where the Gulf Stream transitions from a boundary-trapped current to a free jet, and where robust along-shelf convergence brings cool, relatively fresh Middle Atlantic Bight and warm, salty South Atlantic Bight shelf waters together, forming an important and dynamic biogeographic boundary. The magnitude of this convergence implies large export of shelf water to the open ocean here. Background on the oceanography of the region provides motivation for the study and gives context for the measurements that were made. Science questions focus on the roles that wind forcing, Gulf Stream forcing, and lateral density gradients play in driving exchange. PEACH observational efforts include a variety of fixed and mobile observing platforms, and PEACH modeling included two different resolutions and data assimilation schemes. Findings to date on mean circulation, the nature of export from the southern Middle Atlantic Bight shelf, Gulf Stream variability, and position variability of the Hatteras Front are summarized, together with a look ahead to forthcoming analyses.

Description: We gratefully acknowledge NSF funding (OCE-1558920 to UNC-CH, OCE-1559476 to SkIO, OCE-1558521 to WHOI, OCE-1559178 to NCSU); technical support from Sara Haines, Craig Marquette, Trip Patterson, Nick DeSimone, Erran Sousa, Gabe Matthias, Patrick Deane, Brian Hogue, Frank Bahr, and Ben Hefner; cruise participants Jacob Forsyth, Joleen Heiderich, Chuxuan Li, Marco Valero, Lauren Ball, John McCord, and Kyle Maddux-Lawrence; and the crew of R/V Armstrong for their able support during three PEACH cruises.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Rossby, T., Flagg, C. N., Donohue, K., Fontana, S., Curry, R., Andres, M., & Forsyth, J. Oleander is more than a flower twenty-five years of oceanography aboard a merchant vessel. Oceanography, 32(3), (2019): 126-137, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2019.319.

Description: Since late fall 1992, CMV Oleander III has been measuring upper ocean currents during its weekly trips between Bermuda and Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, by means of an acoustic Doppler current profiler installed in its hull. The overarching objective of this effort has been to monitor transport in the Gulf Stream and surrounding waters. With 25 years of observation in hand, we note that the Gulf Stream exhibits significant year-to-year variations but no evident long-term trend in transport. We show how these data have enabled studies of oceanic variability over a very wide range of scales, from a few kilometers to the full 1,000 km length of its route. We report that the large interannual variations in temperature on the continental shelf are negatively correlated with flow from the Labrador Sea, but that variability in the strength of this flow cannot account for a longer-term warming trend observed on the shelf. Acoustic backscatter data offer a rich trove of information on biomass activities over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. A peek at the future illustrates how the new and newly equipped Oleander will be able to profile currents to greater depths and thereby contribute to monitoring the strength of the meridional overturning circulation.

Description: First and foremost we extend our heartfelt thanks to the Bermuda Container Line/Neptune Group Management Ltd for permission to operate an acoustic Doppler current profiler on board CMV Oleander III, a 150 kHz ADCP between 1992 and 2004, and a 75 kHz ADCP between 2005 and 2018. Their interest and support is gratefully acknowledged. Cor Teeuwen, our initial contact in Holland while the ship was still under construction, played an important role in facilitating the original ADCP installation. His evident interest to make this concept work has stimulated similar activities on other commercial vessels. The interest and willingness of the shipping industry to be supportive of science has been a very positive experience for all of us who have ventured in this direction. Initial funding came from NOAA and the Office of Naval Research. Since 1999, the National Science Foundation has supported the project through funding to the University of Rhode Island and Stony Brook University, and now also to the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), which will be taking over the Oleander operation. NSF is also funding the current transition to the new CMV Oleander. In the early years, G. Schwartze and E. Gottlieb were very helpful with technical support for the project. This included frequent visits to the ship before we had the capability to transfer the data through the Ethernet. We thank Jules Hummon and Eric Firing for adapting the UNOLS-wide UHDAS ADCP operating system to the merchant marine environment. We thank E. Williams and P. Ortner at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, for making the 38 kHz ADCP data from Explorer of the Seas available to us. We also want to thank the NOAA Ship Of Opportunity Program for continued interest in and support of XBT operations along the Oleander section. That support started over 40 years ago and is now stronger than ever. All ADCP data from 1992 through 2018 have been archived at the Joint Archive for Shipboard ADCP (JASADCP), established at the University of Hawaii by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Averaged yearly data sets can be downloaded in ASCII text or NetCDF formats (http://ilikai.soest.hawaii.edu/​sadcp/main_inv.html). We thank Patrick Caldwell, JASADCP’s manager, for his assistance. All ADCP and XBT data can be obtained at the Stony Brook website: http://po.msrc.sunysb.edu/Oleander/. The URL to the project website is http://oleander.bios.edu—an updated data portal and products will soon be accessible here. An ERDDAP server for Oleander data (in the process of being configured) is at this address: http://erddap.​oleander.​bios.edu:​8080/​erddap/. The following link to BIOS lists over 40 publications that have used the ADCP data one way or another: http://oleander.bios.edu/publications/. We thank the two reviewers for their many interesting and helpful comments and suggestions.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Johnston, T. M. S., Schonau, M. C., Paluszkiewicz, T., MacKinnon, J. A., Arbic, B. K., Colin, P. L., Alford, M. H., Andres, M., Centurioni, L., Graber, H. C., Helfrich, K. R., Hormann, V., Lermusiaux, P. F. J., Musgrave, R. C., Powell, B. S., Qiu, B., Rudnick, D. L., Simmons, H. L., St Laurent, L., Terrill, E. J., Trossman, D. S., Voet, G., Wijesekera, H. W., & Zeiden, K. L. Flow Encountering Abrupt Topography (FLEAT): a multiscale observational and modeling program to understand how topography affects flows in the western North Pacific. Oceanography, 32(4), (2019): 10-21, doi: 10.5670/oceanog.2019.407.

Description: Using a combination of models and observations, the US Office of Naval Research Flow Encountering Abrupt Topography (FLEAT) initiative examines how island chains and submerged ridges affect open ocean current systems, from the hundreds of kilometer scale of large current features to the millimeter scale of turbulence. FLEAT focuses on the western Pacific, mainly on equatorial currents that encounter steep topography near the island nation of Palau. Wake eddies and lee waves as small as 1 km were observed to form as these currents flowed around or over the steep topography. The direction and vertical structure of the incident flow varied over tidal, inertial, seasonal, and interannual timescales, with implications for downstream flow. Models incorporated tides and had grids with resolutions of hundreds of meters to enable predictions of flow transformations as waters encountered and passed around Palau’s islands. In addition to making scientific advances, FLEAT had a positive impact on the local Palauan community by bringing new technology to explore local waters, expanding the country’s scientific infrastructure, maintaining collaborations with Palauan partners, and conducting outreach activities aimed at elementary and high school students, US embassy personnel, and Palauan government officials.

Description: We are grateful to Captains David Murline and Tom Desjardins and the crew of R/V Roger Revelle, and to the staff of the Coral Reef Research Foundation, for their help in carrying out the field program; to ONR for funding this work; and to FLEAT colleagues for their collaboration. We wish to thank the Bureau of Marine Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Tourism of the Palau National Government, and the Angaur, Kayangel, Koror, and Peleliu State Governments for the relevant permits to conduct this research in Palau’s waters.