The Barny program: fourteen years of NURC-NRL collaboration

Abstract

Shallow ocean environments, with their rapid variability, short spatial scales and often intense fishing, pose a special challenge for physical oceanographic study. Since 1995, a series of collaborative programs between NURC and the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have addressed this issue. That effort has resulted in an improved capability for measurement and interpretation in water depths to 200 m, on spatial scales from hundreds of meters to hundreds of km, and on temporal scales from tidal to annual. Here we report on two aspects of this work: first, the technologies which have enabled progress in data collection and interpretation; and second, a summary of six major field programs, conducted mostly through a series of Joint Research Programs between NURC and NRL, in which those technologies have been brought to bear. Taken altogether, an effective, highly mobile and affordable approach for studying ocean shallows is demonstrated.