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Mesoscale anticyclonic eddies along the northern Cuban coast (CubANs) have been identified in the Straits of Florida, associated with the northward shift of the Florida Current (FC) and the anticyclonic curvature of the Loop Current (LC) at the western entrance of the Straits. The dynamics of CubAN eddies and their interaction with the LC/FC system … Read more
In an effort to more fully employ underutilized satellite observations in ocean modeling, this work demonstrates a method for quantifying the agreement between time-evolving spatial features evident in fields of differing, but functionally related, variables that are more commonly compared qualitatively via visual inspection. This is achieved through application of the Modified Hausdorff Distance metric … Read more
In 2007 the NOAA Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research (CSCOR) awarded a grant to NOAA GLERL and a team of partners to study the ongoing effects of multiple stressors on the Saginaw Bay ecosystem. This supplemental issue of the Journal of Great Lakes Research provides an updated picture on the state of the Bay … Read more
Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) is a recurrent and widespread problem in the Gulf of Maine (GOM) caused by the dinoflagellate Alexandrium fundyense. Blooms of this species have been the subject of more than a decade of investigation through the ECOHAB-GOM and GOMTOX research programs. Multiple large-scale field surveys have provided data that were combined with … Read more
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction; Basic Definitions and Concepts; Measuring Ecosystem Metabolism; Regulating Factors and Spatial/Temporal Patterns; Ecosystem Metabolism Case Studies; Cross?Ecosystem Comparisons; Metabolic Responses to Climate Change and Variability; Conclusions; Acknowledgments; References; Citing Literature
Dissolved oxygen is a keystone molecule that is involved in the production, consumption, and cycling of organic matter and inorganic elements in the aquatic environment. The majority of multicellular plants and animals in coastal aquatic ecosystems require oxygen for proper physiological functioning, and the biogeochemical cycling of many important inorganic elements is highly oxygen dependent. … Read more
We investigated interactions between hypoxia and nutrient cycling in Chesapeake Bay using quantitative analysis of long?term monitoring data covering the periods 1965?1980 and 1985?2007. The data included vertical water column profiles of temperature, salinity, NH+4, PO3?4, and O2, as well as rates of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) loading to the bay from … Read more
The long-term impacts on marine ecosystems of the recent dramatic worldwide increase in the incidence of coastal hypoxia are unknown. Here, we show widespread reproductive disruption in Atlantic croakers collected from hypoxic sites approximately 120 km apart in the extensive northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf hypoxic zone. Gonadal growth and gamete production were impaired … Read more
Recent oceanographic observations and a retrospective analysis of nutrients and hydrography over the past five decades have revealed that the principal source of nutrients to the Gulf of Maine, the deep, nutrient-rich continental slope waters that enter at depth through the Northeast Channel, may have become less important to the Gulf’s nutrient load. Since the … Read more
Shipboard grazing experiments were conducted in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank during of June 2006 to estimate zooplankton community grazing impact on a natural bloom of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium fundyense. Surface seawater samples containing natural populations of grazers and A. fundyense from 23 stations were incubated at ambient temperatures. Concentrations of … Read more