whcohh_2005.html

Northeast Fisheries Science Center
Oceanography Branch

A Drifter Project Update

Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health deployments 2005

Contents:
SST Imagery
Drifters
Data Streams to Ship

Satellite SST Imagery

Date	GMT Time	satellite	Temp Focus (degC)	Region of focus
14 April 2005	0937	12	2-8	Gulf of Maine
			2-5	Bay of Fundy
			4-6	Mid-Coast Maine
			4-7	Great South Channel
18 April 2005	0938	12	2-10	Gulf of Maine
			3-6	Bay of Fundy
			4-7	Mid-Coast Maine
			4-7	Great South Channel
2 May 2005	1033	12	4-10	Gulf of Maine
			4-7	Bay of Fundy
				Mid-Coast
				Great South Channel
			7-10	Cape Ann
4 May 2005	1028	15
5 May 2005	1104	15	5-10	Gulf of Maine
				Bay of Fundy
				Mid-Coast Maine
				Great South Channel
				Cape Ann
13 May 2005	2236	15	6-10	Gulf of Maine
			6-7	Bay of Fundy
			6-10	Mid-Coast Maine
			6-10	Great South Channel
20 May 2005	0949	12	6-10	Mid-Coast Maine
2 June 2005	0929	12	6-11	Gulf of Maine

Drifters

Basic description/methods

9 rachels (deployed in the Gulf of Maine)

These are standard surface drifters as originally designed for the Coastal Ocean Dynamics Experiment (Davis, 1985). They consist of four ~1m², subsurface, cloth sails mounted orthogonally around a 4-foot length of 2-inch PVC pipe, supported by fiberglass rods, floated by 4 pairs of fish net buoys, and ballasted by a 7 pound window sash weight. The unique feature is a low-cost GPS transmitter (as used in the trucking industry) mounted topside that sends near-hourly fixes to the low-orbitting GLOBALSTAR satellite. The positions are are available on the internet within minutes and near-daily summary plots are generated on a publically available web site. Davis, R. 1985. Drifter Observations of Coastal Surface Currents During CODE: The Method and Descriptive View.J.Geophys.Res.,90,4756-72.

9 grahams (drogue drifters deployed in Bay of Fundy)

Animations

To view realtime positions (a few minutes after they sample)

visit http://www.sensservice.com
login (top right):

Customer User Id: jmanning
Customer password: noaa

go to near bottom of page and click on "adjust displayed rows" & select, say, "30/page"
click on "Last Message Time" column header to sort by most recent
click on "Select Mulitple Units" (if needed) below the list of units on the left side
click/highlight on "name" of units of interest (little dots to left of unit records)
click on "messages" (on the left hand side of the page)
zoom in and out as if you were in MapQuest

(in fact, if you click on the blue position fix on the top of the map you will be sent to Mapquest)

If no coastline is visible, either zoom out or select "World Map" option

To access ascii data file click here
Near-Daily Summary plots overlaid on bathymetry and brief notes

all units

55461-55469 in Bay of Fundy from Grand Manan to Digby (grahams )
55381-55386 Pen Bay line off Isle au Haut (rachels)
55201-55203 off Cape Ann (rachels) demonstrate the chaotic nature of the flow field. While the three units were deployed within a few hours of each other (9 May) and were separated by just a few kilometers, their pathways were significantly different. The inshore-most unit (solid) was advected to Georges Bank, the mid-transect unit (dashed) was advected into Nantucket Sound (eventually washed-ashore on Surf Drive Beach in Falmouth on 13 June), and the offshore unit (dotted) traveled to Cape Hatterhas (eventually entrained by the Gulf Stream in early August).

56101 south of Martha's Vineyard (rachels and grahams)

Individual detail drifter tracks, velocity, and integral time scales (updated on a near-daily basis)

Launch Location	Deployer (track)	ID# (Speed)	Fate (integral time scales)
Truro Line	Billy Souza	55291	Fast track to GSC & out to MAB
	Billy Souza	55292	occassional transmissions; w/temperature sensor
	Billy Souza	55293	Fast track to GSC & out to MAB
Cape Ann Line	Dennis McGillicuddy	55201	Fast track to GSC & east to Georges Bank
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55202	Slow track to GSC, hugged backside of Cape Cod, through the Nant.Sound, around the Vineyard, back to Surf Drive Beach!
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55203	Fast track to GSC & out to MAB
Pen Bay Line	Dennis McGillicuddy	55381	headed inshore, WMCC, over Stellwagen, and died in GSC
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55382	WMCC & recovered on Crane Beach Ipswitch Mass
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55383	offshore
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55384	offshore (intermittant signals) & disappeared
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55385	offshore (circled Jeffrey's Bank) & slow track to GSC
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55386	offshore on to Georges Bank and died
	Lew Incze	5739 series

Bay of Fundy	Dennis McGillicuddy	55461	15 May	headed northeast and then east of GrandManan and ashore on White Head Island & found
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55462		headed to west side of Grand Manan, headed downeast, disappeared
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55463		headed south & ashore NE Grand Manan & found
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55464		failed w/collar
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55465		stagnant mid-gyre and then south to get hung up on Isle of Shoals off NH coast & taken to Portsmouth on 17 June
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55466		converged to Digby & apparently aground
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55467		converged to Digby & apparently aground
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55468		converged to Digby & took corner NW?
	Dennis McGillicuddy	55469		converged to Digby & apparently aground
South of MV	Bruce Keafer	56101	22 June	headed north, then west, then south ...
Mass Bay	Matt Fitzpatrick	56201	28 June	surface unit went east of Cape Cod in ~ two weeks time
	Matt Fitzpatrick	56202	28 June	drogued at 3-6 meters east via Stellwagen, south to Cape Cod Bay, recovered by Sandy Neck fisherman
	Matt Fitzpatrick	57201	18 July	surface unit
	Matt Fitzpatrick	57202	18 July	drogued at 3-6 meters

Data streams to ship:

GoMOOS Moorings

buoys

E,F,L, and M appear to be operating w/both met & ADCP data streams in mid-April

A,B,E,F,I,L, and M appear to be operating w/both met & ADCP data streams in early May

A,B,E,F,I requested by ship

daily routine

"autogomoos" crontabbed perl which runs "atsee/getgomoos.m" and emails to ship daily

NOS Sealevel

daily routine

"nos_new.pl" extracts data from web
"atsee/proc_sl.m" parses and merges to generate "obszeta_2005-05-XX.dat" file

NOAA weather forecast

daily routine

visit http://www.maineharbors.com/cgi-bin/weather/mhwx.cgi?state=us&forecast=margyx&case=0
cut & paste "STONINGTON ME TO MERRIMACK RIVER MA OUT TO 25 NM" section to /data5/jmanning/wind/raw/mayXX05.dat
manually check on format consistent w/ previous
run "atsee/noaa2wstr.m" to generate "noaafcast_2005-05-XX.dat" file

NCEP weather forecast

daily routine

run "atsee/getncep.m" which does DODS query for the node at GOMOOS buoy "E" & generates "ncepfcast_2005_05_XX.dat"

SST Imagery

daily routine

visit http://wavy.umeoce.maine.edu/ and browse images for clear ones
find actual data at: http://wavy.umeoce.maine.edu/GOMOOS/avhrr/mcsst/GOM/2005/may/ & download to /data5/jmanning/images/2005
put new file name in "atsee/pthname.dat" list
run "atsee/i2m_batch.m" after manually specifying temperature range of interest

use multipl axis commands to focus on various sections of the GoM
load "drift_whcohh.dat" file to overlay drifters

Drifter Data & Plots

daily routine

run "atsee/axtrack.m" after specifying "wplot=15" for may 2005 batch
generates plots linked to above and "/me/drift_whcohh.dat" where the latter is the ascii data file

FTP to ftp.seanet.int

"ftpthis" is a perl routine that ftps all of the above to the ship

Note: A concurrent project (Apr-May 2005) to study zooplankton/whale concentrations in the GSC is described elsewhere.

For further information contact: James.Manning@noaa.gov

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(Modified Jun. 21 2006)