Sunday, March 18, 2007

RU16 entering New Jersey shelf

After crossing the shipping lanes by running 12 hour missions using the new flight profiles, the glider has resumed its normal flight behavior heading for the next waypoint on the NJ shelf near the 60 meter isobath north of the Hudson Shelf Valley.
Latest data suggests that the glider is starting to encountering warmer/saltier slope water at depth below the 70 m isobath. The cross-shelf salinity (temperature) section shows an interesting fresh-salty-fresh-salty (cold-warm-cold-warm) pattern.
This is very different than what RU01 currently sees on the Endurance line south of the Hudson Shelf Valley, where we have significant intrusion of the slope water onto the shelf throughout the entire water column:
Next we'll look at the surface current during the month of March on the New Jersey shelf.

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