Upwelling along the New Jersey Coast

Table of Contents

  • Life Cycle of an Upwelling Event
  • Multiple Upwelling Centers
  • A Year of Ocean Weather Offshore New Jersey (1995)
  • A Year of Ocean Weather Offshore New Jersey (1996)

    • Life Cycle of an upwelling Event

    During the summer months, the surface of the ocean near our coast is heated by the sun. This warming causes stratification (warm surface/cold bottom). Typically, winds during our summer months are from the southwest, bringing all that hot humid air up from the Gulf of Mexico. These winds do not blow that surface layer to the northeast, but to the southeast. This 90 degree difference in wind and water current direction is due to the spin put on the water by the earth's coriolis force (earth's spin).
    When the warm surface water is blown offshore, the cold buttom water rises, like a conveyor belt, and hits the beach. This cold water also brings sediment up from the bottom. Phytoplankton (microscopic plants) which float along the surface, used this sediment as food and bloom, causing the water to become green and murky. The figure below demonstrates what happens at the surface and below the water when winds blow from the southwest along the New Jersey coast. Now you know why the beaches can be so cold and "dirty" on the warmest days of the year.


    These three satellite images show an actual upwelling event from 1994. July 21, July 23, July 25

    Multiple Upwelling Centers

    When winds continue from the southwest after an upwelling has begun, the upwelling areas tend to converge around four consistent centers: Long Branch, Barnegat Inlet, Great Bay Inlet, and Hereford Inlet. What we believe happens is that the upwelling band begins to converge into small, weak eddies at approximately 50 km intervals. Temperatures at the beach can then vary up to 10 degrees C (18 F).
    Included in each of the above images is a temperature cross section taken from our CTD measurements. Each cross section corresponds to the area between stations A1 to A7. These cross sections show the cold water at depth that has risen to the surface and pushed the warmer water away from shore. Each cross section also shows the varying degrees of the warm pool that forms at the center of the Great Bay convergance zone.



    A Year of Ocean Weather Offshore New Jersey (1995)

    The images listed below are a combination of CTD cross sections, satellite images, S4 current meter data, and wind data from the RUMFS field station. All of the data is gathered directly by the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences staff. Accompanying these pictures is a temperature scale that remains consistent throughout the year so you can get an idea of the temperature change off our coast during the course of a year. Unfortunately, our wind sensor was down for the first 8 months of 1995, so the wind data you see for these months was actually supplied by NOAA.

    Hurricane Felix - August 18, 1995


    A Year of Ocean Weather Offshore New Jersey (1996)

    These images are a combination of CTD cross sections, satellite images, and wind data from the RUMFS field station. All of the data is gathered directly by the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences staff. Accompanying these pictures is a temperature scale that remains consistent throughout the year so you can get an idea of the temperature change off our coast during the course of a year.

  • January 23, 1996
  • February 27, 1996
  • April 3, 1996
  • May 2, 1996
  • May 31, 1996
  • June 5, 1996
  • June 12, 1996
  • June 21, 1996
  • June 26, 1996
  • July 11, 1996
  • July 16, 1996
  • August 30, 1996
  • December 4, 1996
    		•

    Looking for 1997, 1998 etc........?

    One of the things we learned from our years of research at LEO-15, is that the physical phenomenon we are interested in only occur in June, July and August. So, now we don't go out on cruises except during the summer. Besides it's soooooo cold during the winter. We'd rather get tans during our work.

    flounder@arctic.rutgers.edu