Boreal winter meteorological fronts manifest across the northern Gulf of Mexico as rapid 10-15° C drops in air temperature and accelerating northerly winds. The physical coastal ocean response across the Louisiana-Texas (LATEX) continental shelf system involves a complex interplay between coastal buoyancy, wind forcing, and intense thermal energy fluxes out of the ocean. Herein we combine numerical simulations, in situ optical surveys, and coincident satellite images derived from the Ocean and Land Colour Imager (OLCI) and other sensors to further unravel the mechanistic functioning and optical signatures of these complex events. The conspicuous optical gradients evident in color satellite images coincident with cold air outbreak (CAO) events appear to result from surface ventilation of sediment-laden bottom waters and wind/buoyancy-driven surface currents. The hyperspectral gradients associated with water mass types (sediment resuspension in marine waters versus freshwater effluent plumes) give rise to true color gradients that may be tracked with low spectral resolution color sensors at very high temporal resolution.
The combination of increased spectral resolution for in situ ocean optical instrumentation as well as future ocean remote sensing missions (e.g., PACE) provides an opportunity to examine new methods of analysis and ocean monitoring that were not feasible during the multispectral satellite era. For example, hyperspectral data enables a much more precise determination of the apparent true color for natural waters, one based on the full spectral shape of water-leaving radiance distributions. Herein we provide examples of how specific integrated biogeo-optical and physical processes in the northern Gulf of Mexico have characteristic hyperspectral signatures, and thusly, characteristic true color identifiers. Our emergent hypothesis is that once the characteristic hyperspectral color signature of a specific biophysical process is known, it can be detected and monitored even with multispectral or broad-band response digital imaging systems. To test this hypothesis, we examine archived imagery from MODIS and HICO to identify putative bottom boundary layer ventilation events along divergent shelf-frontal boundaries across the northern Gulf continental margin. Whereas on-demand in situ physical data that provide spatiotemporal correspondence with archived images are not available, we employ the data-assimilative Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) as a physical data surrogate. Preliminary results of this method appear to support the hypothesis, with the caveat that model results must be interpreted with due caution.
Interdisciplinary coastal observations over a two-week period in the northern Gulf of Mexico reveal a complex and dynamic bottom boundary layer (BBL) that is characterized by both biological and suspended sediment (biogeo-) optical signals. Much of the BBL optical variance is concealed from remote sensing by the opacity of the nearly omnipresent surface river plume, however, the BBL physical dynamics and resulting optical excitation are indeed responding to surface wind stress forcing and surface gravity wave-induced turbulence. Here we present a series of numerical modeling efforts and approaches aimed towards resolving and simulating these observed biogeo-physical and –optical processes. First, we examine results from the Tactical Ocean Data System (TODS), which combines daily satellite imagery with numerical circulation model results to render a three-dimensional estimate of the optical field and then execute a reduced-order complexity advection-diffusionreaction model to render hourly forecasts. Whereas the TODS system has the advantage of effectively assimilating both glider data and satellite images, the 3D generation algorithms still have difficulty in the northern Gulf’s complex 3-layered system (surface plume, geostrophic interior, BBL). Second, we present results from the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Prediction (COAMPS) system that has been modified to include interactive surface-gravity wave simulations. Results from this complex numerical modeling system suggest that Stokes drift current (SDC) has a potentially major role in determining the physical and kinematic characteristics of the BBL, and will substantially impact model-based estimates of sediment resuspension and transport.
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