As part of the science planning process for the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), it is being proposed to form a Shelf/Slope Processes Discussion Group. This effort is aimed at providing bottom-up science planning for the Pioneer Array, a coastal observatory focused on shelfbreak exchange processes.
Broader Impacts
The Program anticipates that the workshop will play an important role in focusing the attention of interested science users on both the unprecedented capabilities of the Pioneer Array and the scientific questions which can be answered with the observatory. The organizing team will be charged with producing a white paper summary of the consensus from the discussion at the workshop.
Principal Investigator: Glen Gawarkiewicz, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution This project was aimed at providing science community input to the Ocean Observatories Initiative science and technology relating to the Pioneer Array. The Pioneer Array will be an oceanographic observatory at the edge of the continental shelf south of New England. It is scheduled for commissioning in January, 2014. In order to gather community input, a workshop was held in Providence, Rhode Island, in February, 2011. Thirty scientists from twenty-six different institutions attended. Major topics of discussion were: science themes for the Pioneer Array, improvements to the existing design to further meet science themes, supplementary observations necessary to meet the science themes, and the science-operational interface. Topics of particularly informative discussion included the siting of the moorings for the array, sensor locations and capabilities on the mooring array, and the missions for gliders and autonomous underwater vehicles. Among the recommendations were widening of the mooring array to extend further onshore, use of optical nitrate sensors on the autonomous underwater vehicles, and science community participation in the scheduling and prioritization of activities at the Pioneer Array through the formation of standing committees to discuss operations and activities. The workshop organizers, G. Gawarkiewicz of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, J. Nelson of Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, and R. He of North Carolina State University, submitted a white paper summarizing discussion at the workshop and recommendations of the science community to the National Science Foundation in August, 2011. Regarding broader societal impacts, the scientific results from the Pioneer Array will be important regarding understanding nutrient exchange between the continental shelf and slope, which is a critical issue for understanding ecosystem dynamics over the continental shelf, the impact of large scale forcing such as shifts in winds or north-south excursions of the Gulf Stream on the extremely product shelfbreak ecosystem, and the impact of air-sea fluxes on the forecasting and evolution of large storms including hurricanes and winter storms.
