WHOI Scientists Use Drifters to Track Hidden Currents in Cape Cod Bay
Posted
Last Updated
By MARGARET GREGORY, whoi.edu.
For anyone who fishes, boats, or harvests shellfish in Cape Cod Bay, the water beneath the surface is doing more than it appears. A team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is deploying GPS-tracked drifters and running ocean models to map how currents move water, nutrients, and potential pollutants through the bay — research with direct implications for water quality, harmful algal blooms, and the health of local fisheries and aquaculture operations.
As Margaret Gregory writes for WHOI’s Oceanus magazine:
In Cape Cod Bay, the water, on average, circulates counterclockwise along the coastline, slowing down as it approaches the more quiescent eastern elbow of the bay. But tides, winds, seasonal shifts, rainfall, and other influences from the atmosphere can alter the pattern of this flow. And because the water carries heat, nutrients, and salt within it, the distribution of these properties is affected.
The smaller-scale variation in circulation plays out in ways humans can observe. For example, sudden drops in water temperature can shock turtles and, unable to move, they float along with the surface currents and are found beached on the shore. Changes in temperature and distribution of nutrients influence the presence of harmful algal blooms, which can cause problems for shellfish and the humans that consume them.
The research team — which includes collaboration with high school students through WHOI’s Sea Grant O-STEAM program — is releasing groups of drifters each season to verify model predictions about how water moves through the bay. Early findings show that wastewater and other tracers can become “trapped” in the bay for over two months during fall and winter, while spring and summer conditions allow material to exit more readily. The team is also studying transport pathways for microplastics, fish larvae, and environmental hazards. For harbor communities around Cape Cod Bay, this work offers a clearer picture of how what enters the water moves — and where it ends up.
Read the full article here: Tracking the hidden currents of Cape Cod Bay
