ALBERT

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution December 1985

Description: Samples from time-series sediment traps deployed in three distinct oceanographic settings (North Pacific, Panama Basin, and Black Sea) provide strong evidence for rapid settling of marine particles by aggregates. Particle water column residence times were determined by measuring the time lag between the interception of a flux event in a shallow trap and the interception of the same event in a deeper trap at the same site. Effective sinking speeds were determined by dividing the vertical offset of the traps (meters) by the interception lag time (days). At station Papa in the North Pacific, all particles settle at 175 m day-1, regardless of their composition, indicating that all types of material may be settling in common packages. Evidence from the other two sites (Panama Basin and Black Sea) shows that particle transport may be vertical, lateral, or a combination of directions, with much of the Black Sea flux signal being dominated by lateral input. In order to ascertain whether marine snow aggregates represent viable transport packages, surveys were conducted of the abundance of these aggregates at several stations in the eastern North Atlantic and Panama Basin using a photographic technique. Marine snow aggregates were found in concentrations ranging from ~1 mm3 liter-1 to more than 500 mm3 liter-1. In open ocean environments, abundances are higher near the surface (production) and decline with depth (decomposition). However, in areas near sources of deep input of resuspended material, concentrations reach mid-water maxima, reflecting lateral transport. A model is proposed to relate the observed aggregate abundances, time series sediment flux and inferred circulation. In this model, depthwise variations in sediment flux and aggregate abundance result from suspension from the sea floor and lateral transport of suspended aggregates which were produced or modified on the sea floor. Temporal changes in sediment flux result from variations in the input of fast-sinking material which falls from the surface, intercepts the suspended aggregates, and transports them to the sea floor. A new combination sediment trap and camera system was built and deployed in the Panama Basin with the intent of measuring the flux of marine snow aggregates. This device consists of a cylindrical tube which is open at the top and sealed at the bottom by a clear plate. Material lying on the bottom plate is illuminated by strobe lights mounted in the wall of the cylinder and photographed by a camera which is positioned below the bottom plate. Flux is determined as the number of aggregates arriving during the time interval between photographic frames (# area-1 time-1). Results show that essentially all material arrives in the form of aggregates with minor contributions of fecal pellets and solitary particles. Sinking speeds (m day-1), calculated by dividing the flux of aggregates (# m-2 day-1) by their abundance (# m-3), indicate that the larger (4-5mm) aggregates are flocculent and sink slowly (~1m day-1) while the smaller aggregates (1-2.5mm) are more compact and sink more quickly (~36m day-1). These large, slow-sinking aggregates may have been re-suspended from the sediment water interface at nearby basin margins.

Description: This research was supported by ONR contract numbers N00014-82-C-0019 and N00014-85-C-0001, NSF grant numbers OCE-83-09024, OCE-84-17106, and DPP-85-01152 and the WHO1 education office.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1986

Description: A study of the remineralization of organic carbon was conducted in the organic-rich sediments of Buzzards Bay, MA. Major processes affecting the carbon chemistry in sediments are reflected by changes in the stable carbon isotope ratios of dissolved inorganic carbon (ΣCO2) in sediment pore water. Six cores were collected seasonally over a period of two years. The following species were measured in the pore waters: ΣCO2, δ13C-ΣCO2, PO4, ΣH2S, Alk, DOC, and Ca. Measurements of pore water collected seasonally show large gradients with depth, which are larger in summer than in winter. The δ13C (PDB) of ΣCO2 varies from 1.3 o/oo in the bottom water to approximately -10 o/oo at 30 cm. During all seasons, there was a trend towards more negative values with depth in the upper 8 cm due to the remineralization of organic matter. There was a trend toward more positive values below 8 cm, most likely due to biological irrigation of sediments with bottom water. Below 16-20 cm, a negative gradient was re-established which indicates a return to remineralization as the main process affecting pore water chemistry. Using the ΣCO2 depth profile, it was estimated that 67-85 gC/m2 are oxidized annually and 5 gC/m2-yr are buried. The amount of carbon oxidized represented remineralization occurring within the sediments. This estimate indicated that approximately 20% of the annual primary productivity reached the sediments. The calculated remineralization rates varied seasonally with the high of 7.5 x 10-9 mol/L-sec observed in August 84 and the low (0.6 x 10-9) in December 83. The calculated remineralization rates were dependent on the amount of irrigation in the sediments; if the irrigation parameter is known to ±20%, then the remineralization rates are known to this certainty also. The amount of irrigation in the sediments was estimated using the results of a seasonal study of 222Rn/22R6a disequilibria at the same study site (Martin, 1985). Estimates of the annual remineralization in the sediments using solid-phase data indicated that the solid-phase profiles were not at steady-state concentrations. The isotopic signature of ΣCO2 was used as an indicator of the processes affecting ΣCO2 in pore water. During every month, the oxidation of organic carbon to CO2 provided over half of the carbon added to the ΣCO2 pool. However, in every month, the δ13C of ΣCO2 added to the pore water in the surface sediments was greater than -15 o/oo, significantly greater than the δ13C of solid-phase organic carbon in the sediments (-20.6 o/oo). The δ13C of ΣCO2 added to the pore water in the sediments deeper than 7 cm was between -20 and -21 o/oo, similar to the organic carbon in the sediments. Possible explanations of the 13C-enrichment observed in the surface sediments were: a) significant dissolution of CaC0, (δ13C = + 1.7 o/oo), b) the addition of significant amounts of carbonate ion from bottom water to pore water, c) an isotopic difference between the carbon oxidized in the sediments and that remaining in the sediments. The effect of CaCO3 dissolution was quantified using measured dissolved Ca profiles and was not large enough to explain the observed isotopic enrichment. An additional source of 13C-enriched carbon was bottom water carbonate ion. In every month studied, there was a net flux of ΣCO2 from pore water to bottom water. The flux of pore water ΣCO2 to bottom water ranged from a minimum of 10 x 10-12 mol/cm2-sec in December 83 to a maximum of 50 x 10-12 mol/cm2-sec in August 84. However, because the pH of bottom water was about 8 while that of the pore water was less than or equal to 7, the relative proportion of the different species of inorganic carbon (H2CO*3, HCO-3, CO2-3 was very different in bottom water and pore water. Thus, while there was a net flux of ΣCO2 from pore water to bottom water, there was a flux of carbonate ion from bottom water to pore water. Because bottom water ΣCO2 was more 13C-enriched than pore water ΣCO2, the transfer of bottom water carbonate ion to pore water was a source of 13C-enriched carbon to the pore water. If the δ13C of CO2 added to the pore water from the oxidation of organic carbon was -20.6 o/oo, then the flux of Co2-3 from bottom water to pore water must have been 10-30% of the total flux of ΣCO2 from pore water to bottom water. This is consistent with the amount calculated from the observed gradient in carbonate ion. Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine whether the δ13C of CO2 produced from the oxidation of organic carbon (δ13C-OCox) was different from the δ13C of organic carbon in the sediments (δ13C-SOC). In the laboratory experiments, mud from the sampling site was incubated at a constant temperature. Three depths were studied (0-3, 10-15, and 20-25 cm). For the first study (IE1), sediment was stirred to homogenize it before packing into centrifuge tubes for incubation. For the second study (IE2), sediment was introduced directly into glass incubation tubes by subcoring. The second procedure greatly reduced disturbance to the sediment. Rates of CO2 production were calculated from the concentrations of ΣCO2 measured over up to 46 days. In both studies, the values of Rc in the deeper intervals were about 10% of the surface values. This was consistent with the field results, although the rates decreased more rapidly in the field. In all cases, the remineralization rates during the beginning of IE1 were much greater than those at the beginning of IE2. The sediment for IE1 was collected in February 84. The measured value of Rc in the surface sediment of the laboratory experiment (24 x 10-9 mol/L-sec) was much greater than the value of Rc observed in the field in another winter month, December 83 (.62 x 10-9). The sediment for IE2 was collected in August 85. The measured values of Rc in the surface sediment (6.6-12 x 10-9 mol/L-sec) were consistent with the field values from August 84 (7.5 x 10-9). The ΣCO2 results indicated that IE2 reproduced field conditions more accurately than IE1 did. The isotopic results from the experiments strongly suggested that δ13C-OCox in the surface sediments (-17.8 o/oo ± 1.9 o/oo) was greater than δ13C-SOC (-20.6 ± 0.2 o/oo). The magnitude of the observed fractionation was small enough that the observed values of δ13C-ΣCO2 in the pore waters could be explained by fractionated oxidation coupled with the diffusion of carbonate ion from bottom water to pore water. The observed fractionation was most likely due to the multiple sources of organic carbon to coastal sediments. A study of the natural levels of radiocarbon In these sediments indicated that the carbon preserved in the sediments is approximately 30% terrestrial while the rest is from phytoplankton.

Description: Financial support was provided by the Education Office of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program In Oceanography, by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to the Coastal Research Center, WHOI, and by the National Science foundation under grant NSF OCE83-15412.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2010

Description: In the present work, we study the statistics of wavefields obtained from non-linear phase-resolved simulations. The numerical model used to generate the waves models wave-wave interactions based on the fully non-linear Zakharov equations. We vary the simulated wavefield's input spectral properties: directional spreading function, Phillips parameter and peak shape parameter. We then investigate the relationships between a wavefield's input spectral properties and its output physical properties via statistical analysis. We investigate surface elevation distribution, wave definition methods in a nonlinear wavefield with a two-dimensional wavenumber, defined waves' distributions, and the occurrence and spacing of large wave events.

Description: This project was supported by the US Office of Naval Research and the Joint Program between MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution April 1975

Description: The influence of natural short-term fluctuations in environmental parameters on three components of transient benthic invertebrate community structure: abundance of individuals and species, biomass of individuals, and species diversity, were investigated in this study. The effect of low dissolved-oxygen on transient benthic community structure was studied with samples from Golfo Dulce, an intermittently anoxic basin off the west coast of Costa Rica and the Posa de Cariaco, an anoxoic trench off the north coast of Venezuela. Periodic fluctuations in oxygen concentration were accompanied by a community numerically dominated by a single polychaete species and low species diversity. As the frequency of fluctuations in oxygen concentration decreased, the number of species and individuals in the community increased with a corresponding increase in species diversity. In contrast to fluctuating oxygen conditions which eliminated many species from the community, fluctuating amounts of suspended matter in the bottom water allowed one species to proliferate while maintaining the total species list length. High rates of terrigenious sedimentation occurring naturally off the Spanish Sahara coast produced conditions which apparently hampered the feeding mechanisms of a spionid polychaete. Further offshore, where the diversity should be expected to increase, the spionids were able to flourish. The result was greater numerical abundance and biomass offshore and a lower transient diversity value. Results of simulation of catastophic burial by in situ burial of small isolated portions of Buzzards Bay sediment indicated that sedimentation rates recorded off Spanish Sahara would not eliminate species by burial. However, the small size of the organisms found off Spanish Sahara is probably a result of the constant expenditure of energy for escape. In regions of fluctuating environmental conditions, diversity values are low, principally because of dominance by a single species. Increasingly stable conditions, even though stressful, result in a more even distribution of individuals among the species present and a correspondingly high transient value.

Description: This work was funded by a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Predoctoral Fellowship, N.S.F. Grant GA-3655l, and N.S.F. Grant GA-33502.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1987

Description: This thesis develops a new technique for estimating quasi-homogeneous and quasi-stationary sea surface wave frequency-direction spectra using acoustic tomography. The analysis of acoustic (mode and ray) phase and travel time perturbations due to a rough sea surface is presented. Two canonical waveguides (ideal shallow water and linear squared index of refraction) are used as examples for the mode perturbation. The analysis is used to explain high mode coherence measured in the FRAM N experiment. The forward problem of computing the acoustic phase and travel time perturbation spectra given the surface wave spectrum is solved to first order. An application of the technique to ray phase data taken during the MIZEX '84 experiment is shown. The inverse problems for the homogeneous and quasi-homogel1eous frequency-direction spectrum are introduced. The theory is applied to synthetic data which simulate a fetch-dependent sea. The estimates made agree well with the "actual" (synthetic data) spectrum. The effect of noise in the travel time estimates is studied. The sensitivity of the technique. to the number of rays used in the inversion is investigated and the resolution and variance of the inverse method are addressed.

Description: gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Office of Naval Research, the General Electric Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1980

Description: Dissolved free amino acids (DFAA) were measured in interstitial water samples squeezed from sediments collected in a variety of depositional environments. These sediments were further characterized by measurements of total organic carbon, total nitrogen, dissolved organic carbon, total hydrolyzable amino acids, and pore water-dissolved remineralization products. Surface sediments from the oxygen minimum zone of the Peru Upwelling Region, which consisted of a filamentous bacterial mat, were sampled at three locations. DFAA concentrations within the mat ranged from 5 to 220 μM, with the highest concentrations found in the upper 4 cm at two stations on the landward and seaward edges of the zone, and lower concentrations at a station in the middle of the oxygen minimum zone. Within cores, lower concentrations were found at depths below the mat; and below 30 cm depth concentrations were between 0.7 and 3 μM. Two short cores of offshore sediments had concentrations between 14 and 40 μM (1400 m depth) and between 3 and 8 μM (5200 m). Glutamic acid was the predominant amino acid in nearly all surface sediments samples, making up 30 to 70 mole %. In sediments below 15 cm depth, β-aminoglutaric acid was often more abundant than glutamic acid and other amino acids were virtually absent. Glutamic acid, both from several analyses performed during this work and from data available in the literature is a major DFAA of bacterial pools, and bacteria are a likely source for the high concentrations seen in interstitial water samples. DFAA may be extracted from living cells by the squeezing process, or may be excreted by the bacteria under natural conditions. β-Aminoglutaric acid is s non-protein amino acid isomer of glutamic acid which has not been previously reported as a natural product. However, this work has shown it to be a constituent of the free amino acid pools of some bacteria at about 5 mole %. Its much larger relative abundance in sediments could stem from organisms which biosynthesize greater amounts than those analyzed, or from relatively slow biodegradation. Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts surface sediments (17 m water depth) also contained high DFAA concentrations, near; 50 μM, which decreased gradually with depth to about 5 μM at 30 cm. Glutamic acid and β-aminoglutaric acid were the major components, with β-aminoglutaric acid becoming relatively more abundant with depth in core. Repeated sampling of this station was carried out, and both the concentration and composition of DFAA in replicate samples was very similar. Sediments from the Pettaquamscutt River Estuary, Rhode Island (an anoxic basin), had low DFAA concentrations ranging from 2 to 6 μM. Glutamic and β-aminoglutaric acids made up 30 to 50 % of the total. Three cores of Gulf of Maine basin sediments had DFAA concentrations and compositions which were similar to each other and to Buzzards Bay sediments, except that glycine was a major constituent of some of the samples. Its distribution was irregular over the less than 30 cm depth intervals sampled. Glycine is the major DFAA in the pools of many benthic invertebrates. Its presence in these cores is consistent with independent evidence that Gulf of Maine basin sediments are extensively bioturbated. Two cores of carbonate-rich sediments from the continental rise to the east of the Gulf of Maine and from the Bermuda Rise had surface sediment DFAA concentrations of 33 and 0.9 μM, respectively. Despite the large difference in concentration, compositions were very similar, with glycine and glutamic acid the major constituents. The very low concentrations in the Bermuda Rise sediments may be related to very low metabolizable organic carbon concentrations. Two nonprotein amino acids, γ-aminobutyric acid and β-alanine, were major constituents of the total hydrolyzable amino acids in the Bermuda Rise sediments. Biological processes, specifically microbial, appear to be responsible for the major features of DFAA concentration and composition in the sediments studied. The concentrations of DFAA measured could be of significance to the nutrition of benthic organisms via transepidermal uptake or to the formation of humic substances in sediments, if these levels are found outside cells . However, as a sink for DFAA in sediments, the latter two processes are slow relative to microbial uptake.

Description: Financial support was provided by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Education Office, the Paul M. Fye Fellowship, ONR Contract N00014-79-C-0071, and NSF Grant No. OCE 79-08665. Travel funds to Peru were provided by NSF Grant No. OCE 77-26180.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution December 1980

Description: Data from the COBOLT experiment, which investigated the first 12 km off Long Island's south shore, are analyzed and discussed. Moored current meter records indicate that the nearshore flow field is strongly polarized in the alongshore direction and its fluctuations are well correlated with local meteorological forcing. Complex empirical orthogonal function analysis suggests that subtidal velocity fluctuations are barotropic in nature and are strongly influenced by bottom friction. Wind-related inertial currents were observed within the coastal boundary layer (CBL) under favorable meteorological and hydrographical conditions. The magnitude of these oscillations increases with distance from shore, and they display a very clear 180° phase difference between surface and bottom layers. Nearshore inertial oscillations of both velocity and salinity records appear to lead those further seaward, suggesting local generation and subsequent radiation away from the coast. The response of the coastal zone to impulsive wind forcing is discussed using simple slab and two-layer models, and the behavior of the nearshore current field examined. The major features of the observed inertial motions are in good qualitative agreement with model predictions. It is found that, in a homogeneous domain, the coastal boundary condition effectively prohibits inertial currents over the entire coastal zone. In the presence of stratification the offshore extent of this prohibition is greatly reduced and significant inertial currents may occur within one or two internal deformation radii of the coast. The "coastal effect", in the form of surface and interfacial waves which propagate away from the coast, modifies the "pure" inertial response as it would exist far from shore. The kinematics of this process is such that a 180° phase difference between currents in the two layers is characteristic of the entire coastal zone even before the internal wave has had time to traverse the CBL. It is also suggested that, for positions seaward of several internal deformation radii, interference between the surface and internal components of the coastal response will cause maximum inertial amplitudes to occur for t 〉 x/c2, where c2 is the phase speed of the internal disturbance. The hydrographic structure of the CBL is observed to undergo frequent homogenization. These events are related to both advective and mixing processes. Horizontal and vertical exchange coefficients are estimated from the data, and subsequently used in a diffusive model which accurately reproduces the observed mean density distribution in the nearshore zone. Dynamic balance calculations are performed which indicate that the subtidal cross-shore momentum balance is very nearly geostrophic. The calculations also suggest that the longshore balance may be reasonably represented by a steady, linear equation of motion which includes surface and bottom stresses. Evidence is presented which shows that variations in the longshore wind-stress component are primarily responsible for the energetic fluctuations in the sea surface slope along Long Island. Depth-averaged velocities characteristically show net offshore transport in the study area, and often display dramatic longshore current reversals with distance from shore. These observations are interpreted in terms of a steady circulation model which includes realistic nearshore topography. Model results suggest that longshore current reversals within the CBL may be limited to the eastern end of Long Island, and that this unusual flow pattern is a consequence of flow convergence related to the presence of Long Island Sound.

Description: This work was supported by the Department of Energy through contract no. DE-AC02-EVI0005 entitled Coastal-Shelf Transport and Diffusion.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2010

Description: Wind waves in the ocean are a product of complex interaction of turbulent air flow with gravity driven water surface. The coupling is strong and the waves are non-stationary, irregular and highly nonlinear, which restricts the ability of traditional phase averaged models to simulate their complex dynamics. We develop a novel phase resolving model for direct simulation of nonlinear broadband wind waves based on the High Order Spectral (HOS) method (Dommermuth and Yue 1987). The original HOS method, which is a nonlinear pseudo-spectral numerical technique for phase resolving simulation of free regular waves, is extended to simulation of wind forced irregular broadband wave fields. Wind forcing is modeled phenomenologically in a linearized framework of weakly interacting spectral components of the wave field. The mechanism of wind forcing is assumed to be primarily form drag acting on the surface through wave-induced distribution of normal stress. The mechanism is parameterized in terms of wave age and its magnitude is adjusted by the observed growth rates. Linear formulation of the forcing is adopted and applied directly to the nonlinear evolution equations. Development of realistic nonlinear wind wave simulation with HOS method required its extension to broadband irregular wave fields. Another challenge was application of the conservative HOS technique to the intermittent non-conservative dynamics of wind waves. These challenges encountered the fundamental limitations of the original method. Apparent deterioration of wind forced simulations and their inevitable crash raised concerns regarding the validity of the proposed modeling approach. The major question involved application of the original HOS low-pass filtering technique to account for the effect of wave breaking. It was found that growing wind waves break more frequently and violently than free waves. Stronger filtering was required for stabilization of wind wave simulations for duration on the time scale of observed ocean evolution. Successful simulations were produced only after significant sacrifice of resolution bandwidth. Despite the difficulties our modeling approach appears to suffice for reproduction of the essential physics of nonlinear wind waves. Phase resolving simulations are shown to capture both - the characteristic irregularity and the observed similarity that emerges from the chaotic motions. Energy growth and frequency downshift satisfy duration limited evolution parameterizations and asymptote Toba similarity law. Our simulations resolve the detailed kinematics and the nonlinear energetics of swell, windsea and their fast transition under wind forcing. We explain the difference between measurements of initial growth driven by a linear instability mechanism and the balanced nonlinear growth. The simulations validate Toba hypothesis of wind-wave nonlinear quasi-equilibrium and confirm its function as a universal bound on combined windsea and swell evolution under steady wind.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2000

Description: Interest in short waves on the ocean surface has been growing over the last three decades because they play an important role in surface electromagnetic (e.m.) scattering. Currently radars and scatterometers which use e.m. scattering to remotely examine the ocean can produce estimates of the surface wind field, surface currents, and other scientifically important ocean processes. These estimates are based on models which depend on a thorough understanding of electromagnetic scattering mechanisms, and of the three-dimensional surface wave field. Electromagnetic scattering theory is well developed, but the short wavelength portion of the surface wave field has only recently been experimentally explored. A single, consistent, and accurate model of the energy distribution on the ocean surface, also known as the wave height spectrum, has yet to be developed. A new instrument was developed to measure the height of waves with 2-30 cm wavelengths at an array of locations which can be post-processed to generate an estimate of the two-dimensional wave height spectrum. This instrument (a circular wire wave gage buoy) was deployed in an experiment which gathered not only in situ measurements of the two-dimensional wave height spectrum, but also coincident scatterometer measurements, allowing the comparison of current e.m. scattering and surface wave height spectrum models with at sea data. The experiment was conducted at the Buzzards Bay Tower located at the mouth of Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts. A rotating X-band scatterometer, a sonic anemometer, and a capacitive wire wave gage were mounted on the tower. The wave gage buoy was deployed nearby. The resulting data supports a narrowing trend in the two-dimensional spectral width as a function of wavenumber. Two current spectral models support this to some extent, while other models do not. The data also shows a similar azimuthal width for the scatterometer return and the width of the short wavelength portion of the wave height spectrum after it has been averaged and extrapolated out to the appropriate Bragg wavelength. This appears to support current e.m. composite surface (two-scale) theories which suggest that the scattered return from the ocean at intermediate incidence angles is dominated by Bragg scattering which depends principally on the magnitude and shape of the two-dimensional wave height spectrum. However, the mean wind direction (which corresponds well with the peak of the scatterometer energy distribution) and the peak of 20 minute averages of the azimuthal energy distribution were out of alignment in two out of three data sets, once was by nearly 90°. There are a number of tenable explanations for this including instrument physical limitations and the possibility of significant surface currents, but none that would explain such a significant variation. Given that there are so few measurements of short wave directional spectra, however l these results should be considered preliminary in the field and more extensive measurements are required to fully understand the angular distribution of short wave energy and the parameters upon which it depends.

Description: Funding: the MIT Ocean Engineering Department, the WHOI Rienhart Coastal Research Center, the WHOI Education Office, the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program, and grant N0001493-1-0726 from the Office of Naval Research.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1985

Description: Using the maximum-likelihood estimation method and minimization techniques, quasi-geostrophic wave solutions were fitted to the observations of the 1981 Ocean Acoustic Tomography Experiment. The experiment occupied a 300 km square area centered at 26°N, 70°W, and had a duration of ~80 days. The data set consisted of acoustic travel-time records, temperature records and CTD profiles, obtained from the acoustic tomographic array, moored temperature sensors and recorders, and ship surveys, respectively. While the latter two were conventional spot measurements, the former corresponds to integral measurements of the temperature (or sound-speed) field. The optimal fit to the data corresponded to 3 waves in the first baroclinic mode, evolving under the presence of a westward mean flow with vertical shear. The flow was estimated to be weak (~2 cm/s), but it changed the wave periods significantly by producing large Doppler shifts. The waves were dynamically stable to the mean flow, had weak nonlinear interactions with each other and did not form a resonant traid; thus they constituted a fully linear solution. Evidence for the existence of the waves was strongly supported by the high correlation (~0.9) between the data and the fit, the large amount of signal energy resolved (~80 percent), the excellent quality of the wave-parameter estimate (only about 10 percent in error), and the general agreement between the observations and quasi-geostrophic linear dynamics.

Description: My financial support for the first two years came from the Education Office at W.H.O.I. My dissertation research was supported by ONR Grant NOOOl4-82-C0019.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution May 1990

Description: The importance of wave breaking in both microwave remote sensing and air-sea interaction has led to this investigation of the utility of a Ku-Band CW Doppler scatterometer to detect and characterize wave breaking in the open ocean. Field and laboratory measurements by previous authors of microwave backscatter from sharp-crested and breaking waves have shown that these events can exhibit characteristic signatures in moderate incidence angle measurements of the radar cross-section (RCS) and Doppler spectrum. Specifically, breaking events have been associated with polarization independent sea spikes in the RCS accompanied by increased mean frequency and bandwidth of the Doppler spectrum. Simultaneous microwave, video, and environmental measurements were made during the SAXON experiment off Chesapeake Bay in the fall of 1988. The scatterometer was pointed upwind with an incidence angle of 45 degrees and an illumination area small compared to the wavelength of the dominant surface waves. An autocovariance estimation technique was used to produced time series of the RCS, mean Doppler frequency, and Doppler spectral bandwidth in real-time. The joint statistics of the microwave quantities indicative of breaking are used to investigate detection schemes for breaking events identified from the video recordings. The most successful scheme is based on thresholds in both the RCS and the Doppler bandwidth determined from joint distributions for breaking and non-breaking waves. Microwave events consisting of a sea spike in the RCS accompanied by a large bandwidth are associated with the steep forward face of waves in the early stages of breaking. The location of the illumination area with respect to the phase of the breaking wave, the stage of breaking development, and the orientation of an individual crest with respect to the antenna look-direction all influence the detect ability of a breaking event occurring in the vicinity of the radar spot. Since sea spikes tend to occur on the forward face of waves in the process of breaking, the whitecap associated with a given sea spike may occur after the crest of the wave responsible for the sea spike has passed the center of the illumination area. Approximately 70% of the waves which produce whitecaps within a distance of 5m of the bore sight location are successfully identified by a threshold-based detection scheme utilizing both RCS and bandwidth information. The sea spike statistics are investigated as functions of wave field parameters and friction velocity u*. For VV and HH polarization, the frequency of sea spike occurrence and the sea spike contribution to the mean RCS show an approximately cubic dependence on u*, which is consistent with theoretical modelling and various measures of whitecap coverage. The data also suggest that the average RCS of an individual sea spike is not dependent on u*. At high friction velocities (u*≈40-50cms-l), the contribution of sea spikes to the mean RCS is in the range of 5-10% for VV and 10-20% for HH. The wind speed dependence of the percentage of crests producing sea spikes is comparable to that of the fraction of breaking crests reported by previous authors. The percentage of wave crests producing sea spikes is found to vary approximately as (Re*)1.5, where Re* is a Reynolds number based on u* and the dominant surface wavelength. This result agrees with measurements of the degree of wave breaking by. previous authors and is shown to be consistent with a cubic dependence on u *. Models for the probability of wave breaking as a function of moments of the wave height spectrum are compared to our results. The Doppler frequency and bandwidth measurements are also used to inquire into the kinematics of the breaking process.

Description: This work was funded by grants from the MIT Sloan Basic Research Fund, the National Science Foundation (Physical Oceanography), and the Office of Naval Research (Physical Oceanography). Additional funding was provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the Graduate Student Researchers' Fellowship Program.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution January 1987

Description: Garrett and Munk use linear dynamics to synthesize frequency-wavenumber energy spectra for internal waves (GM72, GM75, GM79). The GM internal wave models are horizontally isotropic, vertically symmetric, purely propagating, and universal in both time and space. This set of properties effectively eliminates all the interesting physics, since such models do not allow localized sources and sinks of energy. Thus an important step in understanding internal wave dynamics is to make measurements of deviations from the simple GM models. This thesis continues the search for deviations from the GM models. It has three advantages over earlier work: extensive data from an equatorial region, long time series (2 years), and relatively sophisticated linear internal wave models. Since the GM models are based on mid-latitude data, having data from an equatorial region which has a strong mean current system offers an opportunity to examine a region with a distinctly different basic state. The longer time series mean there is a larger statistical ensemble of realizations, making it possible to detect smaller internal wave signals. The internal wave models include several important extensions to the GM models: horizontal anisotropy and vertical asymmetry, resolution between standing modes and propagating waves, general vertical structure, and kinematic effects of mean shear flow. Also investigated are the effects of scattering on internal waves, effects that are especially strong on the equator because the buoyancy frequency variability is a factor of ten higher than at mid-latitudes. In the high frequency internal wave field considered (frequencies between .125 cph and .458 cph), several features are found that are not included in the GM models. Both the kinematic effects of a mean shear flow and the phase-locking that distinguishes standing modes from propagating waves are observed. There is a seasonal dependence in energy level of roughly 10% of the mean level. At times the wave field is zonally and vertically asymmetric, with resulting energy fluxes that are a small (4% to 10%) fraction of the maximum energy flux the internal wave field could support. The fluxes are, however, as big as many of the postulated sources of energy for the internal wave field.

Description: This work has been supported under grants from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, grants numbered NSF-89076, ONR-88914, NSF-9l002, NSF-94971, and NSF-93661.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2000

Description: A finite difference computer model is developed to simulate the exposure statistics of a radio frequency buoyant antenna as it is towed in a three-dimensional random seaway. The model allows the user to prescribe antenna properties (length, diameter, density, etc.), sea conditions (significant wave height, development of sea), tow angle, and tow speed. The model then simulates the antenna-sea interaction for the desired duration to collect statistics relating to antenna performance. The model provides design engineers with a tool to predict antenna performance trends, and to conduct design tradeoff studies. The floating antenna envisioned is for use by a submarine operating at modest speed and depth.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2000

Description: Phosphorus, an essential nutrient, is removed from the oceans only through burial with marine sediments. Organic phosphorus (Porg) constitutes an important fraction (ca. 25%) of total-P in marine sediments. However, given the inherent lability of primary Porg biochemicals, it is a puzzle that any Porg is preserved in marine sediments. The goal of this thesis was to address this apparent paradox by linking bulk and molecular-level Porg information. A newly-developed sequential extraction method, which isolates sedimentary Porg reservoirs based on solubility, was used in concert with 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-NMR) to quantify Porg functional group concentrations. The coupled extraction/31P-NMR method was applied to three sediment cores from the Santa Barbara Basin, and the first-ever high-resolution depth profiles of molecular-level Porg distribution during diagenesis were generated. These depth profiles were used to consider regulation of Porg distribution by biomass abundance, chemical structure, and physical protection mechanisms. Biomass cannot account for more than a few percent of sedimentary Porg. No evidence for direct structural control on remineralization of Porg was found. Instead, sorptive protection appears to be an important mechanism for Porg preservation, and structure may act as a secondary control due to preferential sorption of specific Porg compound classes.

Description: My first three years in the Joint Program were funded by a fellowship from the Office of Naval Research. The WHOI education office provided funding for the balance of my graduate studies.