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Monitoring Shelf Sea Dynamics with Ocean-Bottom Distributed Acoustic Sensing
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  • Loïc Viens,
  • Zack Jack Spica,
  • Brent G. Delbridge,
  • Brian K. Arbic
Loïc Viens
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Zack Jack Spica
University of Michigan
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Brent G. Delbridge
Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Brian K. Arbic
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
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Abstract

The mixing of ocean waters on continental shelves, which is mainly driven by waves, tides, and currents, plays a key role in the physics, biogeochemistry, and ecology of coastal regions. This study focuses on four months of continuous data recorded along a telecommunication cable offshore Oregon, USA, with Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). We apply a cross-correlation approach to the continuous DAS data to infer the propagation of ocean surface gravity waves in the 3 to 100 s period range and estimate near-surface ocean flows. We observe strong spatio-temporal variations of ocean flows along the cable over four months, with strong impacts from a series of storms in late October 2021. We find that our measurements capture oceanic surface motions as those measured by nearby traditional oceanographic instruments. This study demonstrates that ocean-bottom DAS can be used to infer the dynamic properties of near-shore oceans with an unprecedented spatio-temporal resolution.
14 Mar 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
16 Mar 2023Published in ESS Open Archive