Mechanisms of near-bottom offshore export off Long Bay, SC

Abstract

Cross-shelf exchange in the South Atlantic Bight, between Cape Canaveral, FL and Cape Hatteras, NC, is largely regulated by the presence of the Gulf Stream. Gulf Stream frontal eddies produce regular short term upwelling (and associated carbon production) and relaxation (and associated carbon export) on approximately weekly time scales through much of the region, but the Gulf Stream's deflection at the Charleston Bump suggests that cross-shelf processes are fundamentally different in Long Bay, SC, than elsewhere in the region. Data from a field study in 2012-2013 show persistent offshore flow near-bottom on the outer shelf and upper slope in winter, as well as evidence of shelf-derived organic matter in the water column offshore. Potential mechanisms for this transport are explored for their contributions to near-bottom flow and implications for carbon export to the deep ocean.

Bio

Dr. Catherine R. Edwards is a physical oceanographer and associate professor at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and in the Department of Marine Sciences at University of Georgia, where she is a fellow in the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and adjunct faculty in the College of Engineering. A Louisiana native, she earned a BS in physics with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and worked as an ocean modeler at the US Naval Research Laboratory before earning her PhD in physical oceanography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With programs funded by the National Science Foundation, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of Naval Research, and private philanthropic funding, Dr. Edwards’s research focuses on answering fundamental questions in coastal oceanography and fisheries sciences with autonomous underwater vehicles, developing novel ways to optimize their use with engineering principles and real-time data streams from models and observations. She was awarded a Senior Summer Faculty Fellowship by the Office of Naval Research in 2023, and has served as a member of the US Integrated Ocean Observing System Advisory Committee, a federal advisory committee that provides guidance on ocean observation to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator and the Interagency Ocean Observation Committee, since 2021.