The Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) Program is an NSF OTIC effort to conduct large-scale, interdisciplinary research to improve our quantitative understanding of the processes that dominate the transports, transformations and fates of biologically, chemically and geologically important matter within continental margin systems. This effort developed from an NSF-sponsored workshop held in 1987 to build consensus in the academic coastal ocean scientific community regarding priorities for coastal zone research. Support of CoOP currently comes from the National Science Foundation. In the past, both the Office of Naval Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have funded CoOP planning activities as well as field process studies.

The CoOP Office moved to the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography with Dr. Richard Jahnke as Chair in 2000. Prior Chairs have been Drs. Ken Brink of WHOI and Mike Roman of UMCES. In addition to the Chair, CoOP is guided by a Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) of scientists from institutions throughout the US and Canada. Members are drawn equally from the five major oceanographic disciplines: Biological, Chemical, Geological and Physical Oceanography, and Marine Meterology. The Committee members generally serve a three year rotation.

CoOP is driven by the principle that there is a reasonably compact set of fundamental processes which in varying degrees are to be found on most continental margins. The differentiation among margins is therefore in the degree to which any process dominates. These fundamental processes include but are not limited to: air-sea interactions; wind-driven currents and mixing; buoyancy effects; episodic events; influences from western boundary currents; tidal exchange; benthic processes; and biogeochemical transformations.

The process of fostering a research effort begins with a consensus from the SSC as to the priority of a selected topic. A workshop for interested scientists establishes working groups whose discussions generate recommendations that are synthesized into a science plan. The completed science plan is distributed to the scientific community for comment, and is subsequently followed by an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for funding. Proposals submitted in response to the AO are peer and panel reviewed by the funding agency. The SSC maintains a guidance role during the subsequent field program.

CoOP conducted an open workshop entitled Coastal Ocean Processes and Observatories: Advancing Coastal Research in May 2002, which developed the concept of a Pioneer Array, a coastal observatory with relocatable, moored and mobile elements (COS report). A subsequent workshop in November 2003 developed the Coastal Observatory Research Arrays (CORA) report, further refining the Pioneer Array concept and introducing Endurance Arrays. These two efforts provided a focus for subsequent ORION development of coastal observatory designs.

An April 2004 workshop developed the final CoOP research initiative, which focused on coastal benthic exchange dynamics (CBED) that could only be addressed using incipient or existing observatory-based technologies. The subsequent NSF call for proposals funded four separate CBED studies and was the first official funding for ORION research efforts.

In all, CoOP has initiated projects addressing benthic exchange dynamics, bouyancy-driven transport, wind-driven transport, air-sea fluxes and inner shelf transport, supporting in excess of 140 individual researchers:

Buoyancy-driven Transport - CoOP conducted an open workshop in late 1998 to develop a Science Plan for the study of transport processes over continental shelves with substantial freshwater inflows. In 2000, ONR funded four proposals to prepare review papers on buoyancy-driven transport in an effort to further define the state of knowledge about transport processes on shelves with significant freshwater inflow. An AO in 2002 resulted in the funding of two proposals for the study of buoyancy-driven transport.

Wind-driven Transport - In late 1999, CoOP funded two groups for interdisciplinary process studies of wind-driven transport. The focus areas of the studies are the U.S. west coast off Oregon and California where both upwelling and downwelling can occur and the upwelling front varies in its distance from shore. Wind Events in Shelf Transport (WEST) and Coastal Ocean Advances in Shelf Transport (COAST) Projects have conducted intensive studies on the shelves of the NE Pacific where high biological production and strong air-sea interactions are important mediators of particle and solute transport. The central focus of these studies is to determine the processes that control the cross-margin (inshore to offshore) transport of biological, chemical and geological materials in a strongly wind-driven system. CoOP also funded an earlier modeling study to investigate the effects of three-dimensional wind-forced circulation processes on ecosystem dynamics under both upwelling and downwelling conditions. Field work continued through 2003 for COAST, while WEST completed fieldwork in the 2002 season.

Great Lakes/ Episodic Processes - In 1997, CoOP began two interdisciplinary process studies on cross-margin transport in the Great Lakes in collaboration with the NOAA Coastal Ocean Program. The study of Episodic Events: Great Lakes Experiment (EEGLE) focused on the role of the annually recurrent southern Lake Michigan plume in transporting material across the margins of Lake Michigan. Mooring arrays, ship surveys, drifter studies and radar sites were used to track the plume, surface currents and the particle field. A second CoOP Great Lakes project was The Keweenaw Interdisciplinary Transport Experiment in Lake Superior (KITES). The Keweenaw Current forms a semi-permeable barrier along the coast that inhibits shore and river derived material from crossing the central basin of Lake Superior. Water movement in this current is the primary means for transport of material from the western to eastern lake basin and is important in dictating productivity throughout the whole lake.

Coastal Air-Sea Chemical Fluxes - In order to develop a quantitative, mechanistic understanding of how gases are transported between the coastal atmosphere and ocean, CoOP initiated a program to improve our ability to estimate chemical fluxes in coastal regions. In 1995 a cooperative program was developed between CoOP and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsored Marine Boundary Layer Research Initiative and the Minerals Management Service (MMS). CoOP investigators focused on air-sea gas exchange; MMS studied surface flux and Langmuir circulation dynamics; and ONR’s research effort focused on exchange of momentum, heat aerosols, and the dynamics of the atmosphere and oceanic boundary layers. CoOP investigators developed both new underway mapping systems and moored in situ sensors to measure gases.

Inner Shelf Dynamics - The first CoOP project was initiated off Duck, NC in 1992 to study transport on inner shelves. This region had not been widely studied because the strong wave activity on the inner shelf makes it difficult to maintain moorings and to operate ships. The interdisciplinary CoOP project focused on the suspension and cross-shelf transport of sediments and the planktonic larvae of inner shelf benthic invertebrates. The investigators used both a cross-shelf array and ship surveys to study the physics, sediments and plankton of the inner shelf. Conditions of both upwelling and downwelling favorable winds during the study period resulted in varying water property characteristics as well as larval concentration distributions. The patterns of larval abundance are a consequence of habitat affinities of the different taxa as well as wind-driven cross-shelf transport.