Completed Project: ONR Coastal Mixing and Optics Moored Array Experiment (CMO)

Please see the CMO site in the Upper Ocean Data Archives for the CMO mooring archived data and instrumentation descriptions.

The objective of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Coastal Mixing and Optics program is to identify and understand the role of vertical mixing processes in determining the mid-shelf vertical structure of hydrography, optical properties and particulate matter. As a part of CMO, the Upper Ocean Processes Group deployed a moored array on the New England Shelf from August 1996 through June 1997. The observations from this array will be used to identify and understand the vertical mixing processes influencing the evolution of stratification over the shelf.

The array consists of a central mooring site, at approximately 40.5 N, 70.5 W, and three surrounding sites. Relative to the central at 70 m depth, the surrounding sites are 10 km inshore at 60 m depth, 10 km offshore at 80 m depth, and 25 km alongshore at 70 m depth.

Each site includes a surface/subsurface mooring pair instrumented for measurement of currents, temperature, and salinity. In addition, an ADCP was deployed on the inshore and offshore moorings. The central site includes a pitch-roll buoy to obtain surface wave spectra and a surface-scanning Doppler sonar to image the surface velocity field. The surface mooring at the central site was instrumented with meteorological sensors for measurement of wind speed and direction, incoming short-wave and long-wave radiation, relative humidity, air temperature, sea-surface temperature, and barometric pressure.

The moored array and its deployment are described in more detail in a technical report (Galbraith et al., 1997: Coastal Mixing and Optics Experiment: Mooring deployment cruise report, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Technical Report WHOI-97-13, 81 pp.). The Upper Ocean Processes Group launched mooring 1000 of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution during the CMO Experiment.

CTD surveys were conducted during the deployment and recovery cruises. Cross-shelf transects and along-isobath transects were made with a station separation of about 5 km.

METEOROLOGICAL DATA

• Observed Meteorology
  • Plots
    • Overview: Hourly values of observed meteorological variables.
    • Monthly plots: Fifteen minute values
      • August 1996
      • September 1996
      • October 1996
      • November 1996
      • December 1996
      • January 1997
      • February 1997
      • March 1997
      • April 1997
      • May 1997
      • June 1997
  • Data can be found at our data archive site
  
  
• Air-Sea Flux Estimates
  • Plots
    • Overview: Hourly values of bulk fluxes computed from observed meteorology.
    • Monthly plots: Fifteen minute values
      • August 1996
      • September 1996
      • October 1996
      • November 1996
      • December 1996
      • January 1997
      • February 1997
      • March 1997
      • April 1997
      • May 1997
      • June 1997
  • Data can be found at our data archive site
  
  

  Water Temperature Data

  • Plots of Central Site data
    • Upper water column, early
    • Upper water column, late
    • Lower water column, early
    • Lower water column, late
  
  

  SURFACE WAVE DATA

  • Plots
    • Overview: continuous time series of hourly surface wave parameters; significant wave height (SWH), peak wave period (PWP) and average wave period (AWP).
      Three data sources were used to form this dataset. The primary data were a subset of non-directional wave parameters from the three deployments of the Seatex Waverider buoy. When Seatex data were not available, wave parameters from NDBC buoys 44008 and 44025 were used.
    • Monthly plots: Hourly values of significant wave height, swell height, peak wave direction, swell direction, and peak wave period are shown for each month. Since these parameters come from the Seatex Waverider buoy exclusively, gaps exist when the buoy was not on site.
      • August 1996
      • September 1996
      • October 1996
      • November 1996
      • December 1996
      • January 1997
      • February 1997
      • March, 1997 - no data collected
      • April 1997
      • May 1997
      • June 1997
  • Data download, Spring and Fall cruise periods
  
  

  CTD SURVEYS

  • Deployment cruise CTD survey.
    • plan view at 10m below surface
    • plan view at 10m from bottom
    • across-shelf section on 960804
    • across-shelf section on 960807
    • across-shelf section on 960810
    • across-shelf section on 960905
  • Recovery cruise CTD survey.
    • Across-shelf section on 970610
    • Across-shelf section on 970617
  
  
  Last updated: April 23, 2008