Scotscar Log - July 16, 2001

Monday, July 16, 2001

Wow. What a day, and its only Monday. We had a great briefing last night. Planning discussions centered on the green spot centered on the A-Line on Saturday. Would it still be there on Monday? All clouds on Sunday, so we couldn't see it, and our boats had the day off.

So Caleta set out this morning at 6:00 to do the N3, N1, S1, S3 large scale. Walford followed at 7 out the A line, and back in on N1. Lee headed out with Seatow Joe on his new Parker on the A line, and back on S1. A nice pattern.

Cool thing about the morning Caleta N lines was the fluorometry and temperature. Thin thermocline offshore, that spread and mixed nearshore. Fluorometry peak also was thin offshore, and remained thin inshore, following the top of the now mixed thermocline. Walford used the Caleta data to plan its N1 line station locations. Caleta then headed down to S1. Half way out they reported a strong surface slick, and different water types on either side. Lee was on the inshore side of the S1 line, and immediately headed out. Before Lee even reached the front, the SeaWiFS overpass came in. Wow. Clear as day. Huge chunk of green stuck right in the middle of our sampling domain. Walford ran right across it in the morning, and there was a strong optical front half way out the S1 line, right where Bob said he saw the front. Great job guys. Next we started looking at the entire green spot. Mike checked the satellite navigation, and really zeroed it in. The end of the S1 and S3 lines where exactly at the edge of the big green spot. One more 1 kilometer pixel seaward and the chlorophyll dropped like a rock, clear blue pixels. We had the Caleta extend their S lines 1 mile offshore so they could cross it. Then Mike grabbed the long-range CODAR data from Josh, and put together a super-sized Stupid Mike. For those not familiar with the technical term "Stupid Mike", it means a satellite image that has the CODAR vectors overlain on it. We saw a nice eddy along the south Jersey coast, corresponding exactly to the SeaWiFS fronts. Nothing like a full-color super-sized Stupid Mike to make an oceanographers day. Paul Bissett is sending it in tonight for the cover of the Oceanography special issue on ocean optics. Its due today. Real-time data, yeah, we can deal with it.

Specter (spelling?) flyguys are coming into Atlantic City tomorrow. I'm gonna head down and get me a tour. They are going to try to fly Wednesday morning on the way home to sunny California. Slimey Louis says clouds for Wednesday morning, so we'll have to wait and see. We are supposed to be getting some nice SW winds through tomorrow, but we are worried about this storm that's brewing and heading our way about Wednesday. Hope it doesn't stir everything up on us and send us back to the start. We're getting some of the biggest fluorometery readings since 1998, and we go low DO at the bottom. Not good for the clams. And the fishermen at the local Wawa are saying there's no fish, the waters too cold, and its not moving. They were right, the big green spot did not move since we last saw it on Saturday. So much for all these fancy computers. I'm heading to Wawa for my next forecast.