Image

A River in the Ocean

September 3, 2018

Scientists at WHOI have been studying the Gulf Stream for decades. Physical oceanographer Arthur Rocky Miller, shown here in 1960, came to WHOI in 1946 and was among the first to study the massive current and its effects on coastal waters. In 2011, the institution celebrated the tenth anniversary of “Line W,” an array of moorings across the Gulf Stream that gather data on salinity, temperature, and current speed and direction at different depths. More recently, scientists working as part of the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative showed that in late 2011 a small current branched from the Gulf Stream and veered onto the continental shelf near New England–a pattern that, if sustained, could seriously affect fisheries in the region. (Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)