Image

Tracing the Flow

April 11, 2014

Research specialist Frank Bahr (left) and physical oceanographer Glen Gawarkiewicz analyze data on currents collected during a 2005 cruise off Cape Hatteras. Gawarkiewicz studies the currents along and across the edge of the continental shelf, and how those water movements affect plankton, fish, and marine mammals. He, scientist Steven Lentz, and postdoctoral scholar Ke Chen recently traced a link between large-scale atmospheric circulation and temperatures over the continental shelf: A 2012 ocean “heat wave” that disrupted northeast fisheries resulted from a shift in the jet stream. (Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)