To address long-standing gaps on the east coast, SECOORA invested in a regional glider network to gather historically lacking data on shelf circulation and water properties in the South Atlantic Bight.

Four gliders deployed September 2016 traversed through the footprints of SECOORA funded assets – high frequency radar, buoys and SABGOM model output. Two gliders navigated along the shelf, one along the slope and the last profiled Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary. Below are pictures from the deployment.

The effort was part of the SECOORA Regional Glider Observatory Network composed of experts and gliders from five universities.

Gliders were equipped with CTD sensors and acoustic receivers, a Vemco VMT receiver (animal telemetry data), and a “remore” receiver (acoustics data) from the Ocean Tracking Network and NOAA (thank you!). The gliders were recently retrieved and all data is available on the US IOOS Glider Data Assembly Center.

Project Principal Investigators:

• Catherine Edwards, University of Georgia Skidaway of Institute of Oceanography
• Chad Lembke, University of South Florida College of Marine Science
• Harvey Seim, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Marine Sciences
• Ruoying He, North Carolina State University Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences
• Fumin Zhang from the Georgia Institute of Technology

Glider Information:

• Bass – University of South Florida College of Marine Science
  Deployment Location: Port Canaveral, Florida
• Ramses – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Deployment Location: Port Canaveral, Florida
• Modena – University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
  Deployment Location: Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary in Georgia
• Salacia – North Carolina State University
  Deployment Location: Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary in Georgia

Thank You

A special thank you to Eric Reyier and Doug Scheidt (NASA) and Jared Halonen, Todd Recicar, Kim Roberson, and Sarah Fangman (GRNMS) for deployment support and donated ship time. Thank you also Ocean Tracking Network and NOAA for loaning your Vemco VMT and “remore” receivers for the gliders. Lastly, thank you Susan Barbieri (FWC/FWRI) for loacing a Vemco VMT transceiver.