The OCEANOL Program

The researchers in the Ocean Observation Laboratory (OCEANOL) seek to better understand coastal ocean processes by integrating modern ocean observations with numerical ocean modeling. Measurements from moorings, coastal high-frequency radar sites, shipboard surveys, operational satellite imagery and meteorology are integrated into our studies of various coastal ocean and estuarine domains including the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, New England Shelf and Buzzards, Narragansett and Mt. Hope Bays.
Relevant historical and operational agency real-time data from such federal agencies as NOAA/NDBC, NOAA/NOS, NOAA/NWS, and Navy/FNMOC, are integrated and assimilated into several numerical circulation models for simulation, process studies, and in a data assimilation mode for hindcasting, nowcasting and forecasting.

Our current research program includes:

• An observational/modeling study of transient tidal eddies east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the Great South Channel of the western Gulf of Maine.
• The Sea Grant-funded development of a Gulf of Maine Storm Simulation and Prediction System that uses operational meteorological and oceanographic measurements to drive the Dartmouth 3-D prognostic circulation model.
• A NOAA/NMFS-funded program for the rescue and analysis of historical temperature and biological data under the auspices of the NOAA/NMFS Environmental Services Data and Information Management (ESDIM) program.
• A National Science Foundation-funded observation/modeling study of the formation and evolution of the winter mixed layer in the western Gulf of Maine.