The Santa Barbara Channel-Santa Maria Basin Circulation Study: A National Model for Applied Oceanographic Research and Monitoring

摘要

Since 1991, the Minerals Management Service Pacific OCS Region (MMS) has entered into several Cooperative Agreements with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps) to conduct research concerning the oceanic circulation in the Santa Barbara Channel (SBC) and Santa Maria Basin (SMB) area offshore California. The SBC and the SMB are adjacent, oceanographically linked basins in the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) where offshore oil and gas activities are taking place. This research was prompted by recommendations from the National Research Council (NRC) in 1989 and 1990 and two MMS-sponsored workshops: the Offshore Oil Spill Movement and Risk Assessment Workshop and the Southern California Bight Physical Oceanography Workshop, both held in La Jolla, California, in November 1990. The NRC and both workshops recommended that: (1) trajectory estimates of spilled contaminants should be based much more closely on observations coupled with numerical modeling and (2) long-term observations should be conducted to determine seasonal and inter-annual fluctuations in the oceanic circulation in the area of active Pacific OCS oil and gas leases. In response to these and other recommendations, the MMS and Scripps devised a multi-year research program to ascertain the various circulation patterns characteristic of the SBC-SMB area and their forcing agents. The plan consisted of three years of densely populated (spatially coherent) field observations in the SBC coupled with monitoring stations deployed in the SMB, followed by three years of equally intensive field work in the SMB coupled with monitoring stations deployed in the SBC (Figure 1). This strategy produced a spatially and temporally coherent six-year time series of a suite of oceanographic and meteorological observations for the entire SBC-SMB area.