Pioneer-Adjacent CPIES rescue

Through this project we have (1) deployed two current- and pressure-sensor-equipped inverted echo sounders (CPIESs), each equipped with four Popup Data Shuttles (PDSs), on the 1000-m isobath just northeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and (2) established a data pathway to share the batches of CPIES observations broadly with the research community and other stakeholders as soon as they are available after download via satellite. The data records provided by the CPIESs are supporting stand-alone science to study physical oceanographic processes on the southern Mid Atlantic Bight (MAB) continental slope over a range of temporal scales and are also complementing the shelf-focused observations from the neighboring Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Coastal Pioneer Array. The CPIESs, which are bottom landers, provide invaluable in situ measurements on the slope—a location that is difficult to observe with water column moorings, due to the intermittent presence of the strong Gulf Stream jet and potential conflict with fishing gear (e.g., from pelagic longlines or nets). In turn, observations from the Pioneer Array are providing information about the regional water masses that give spatial context for the CPIESs’ time series measurements.