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Overseeing the Observatory

July 1, 2014

Physical oceanographer Al Plueddemann stands in the shadow of a surface buoy aboard the R/V Knorr in April 2014. The buoy serves as flotation for a surface mooring in the Pioneer Array, a network of moorings and autonomous underwater vehicles located about 80 miles south of Cape Cod. As part of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatory Initiative, the array will provide scientists with oceanic and meteorological data from the continental shelf to the continental slope. These observations will allow scientists to examine several important coastal processes, including the role of filaments and eddies in the exchange of heat, salt and nutrients across the continental shelf. (Photo by John Lund, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)