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Quantifying cold front induced water transport of a bay with in situ observations using manned and unmanned boats

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Abstract

The generation of high-resolution data is increasingly important in understanding the complexities of coastal ocean and developing sound management strategies, especially in view of the long-term impact of severe weather systems. The impact of severe weather systems, when integrated over time, can be significant when compared with tidal oscillations. This paper presents a study of water transport out of Vermilion Bay in response to a short, intense event associated with a passing atmospheric cold front, and reports the application of an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) mounted on an Automated Surface Craft (ASC), known as the auto-boat or unmanned boat, developed in our lab at the Louisiana State University, to generate high resolution data accurately at a fraction of the cost of a manned boat. In our study, we used a manned boat and an unmanned boat, each for over 24 h to cover an entire diurnal tidal cycle, to measure flow velocity profiles to calculate the total transport. A stationary ADCP was deployed in the Southwest Pass of the Vermilion Bay from May 2009 to April 2012, providing data almost continuously (with only one major gap), with a 717-day record of water transport between the northern Gulf of Mexico and Vermilion Bay, and demonstrates the importance of the pass in water transport.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coastal Studies Institute, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Eddie Weeks & Chunyan Li

  2. Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Mark E Robinson

Authors
  1. Eddie Weeks
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  2. Mark E Robinson
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  3. Chunyan Li
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Correspondence to Chunyan Li.

Additional information

Foundation item: The Louisiana Board of Regents EPSCoR (pFund); the Louisiana Board of Regents Traditional Enhancement Program under contract No. LEQSF (2016-17)-ENH-TR-05; the North Pacific Research Board under contract No. 1229; the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries under contract No. 699775/514-100210.

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Weeks, E., Robinson, M.E. & Li, C. Quantifying cold front induced water transport of a bay with in situ observations using manned and unmanned boats. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 37, 1–7 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-018-1330-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-018-1330-1

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