The instrument array of CUE-I includes recording current meters, 

 temperature and salinity sensors, and anemometers. Additional wind 

 measurements on shore will be made by the Marine Meteorological Station 

 at Newport, Oregon. Data from a tide gauge at Newport will be used 

 to measure the variation in sea level associated with upwelling. Varia- 

 tions in slope of the sea surface will be monitored by comparison of tide 

 gauge data with pressures recorded by the instruments moored at sea. 

 The arrays will be deployed off the Oregon coast, as shown in Figures 14 & 

 15, to obtain an intensive two-month time series of currents, density fields, 

 and surface wind fields. The instrument arrays will be kept small so that 

 details of the upwelling process and the ocean's response to the wind will 

 not be missed. Synoptic observations over a larger region will be made by 

 ship and by aircraft. 



CUE-I is the first study of sufficient size and intensity to be able to 

 define the time and space scales of coastal upwelling, and performed with 

 sufficient oceanographic and meteorological measurements so that numeri- 

 cal models of coastal upwelling may be tested to determine how realistic 

 they are. 



The research vessels Cayuse, Yaquina and Oceanographer shown in 

 Figure 16, will make the repeated detailed hydrographic sections through 

 the area to define the density and nutrient fields and their variations. An 

 instrumental research aircraft from the National Center for Atmospheric 

 Research will be used to obtain synoptic maps of ocean surface tempera- 

 ture, and flight-level air temperature, relative humidity, and winds. 



Upwelling patches, plumes, or other features of interest revealed 35 



by the aircraft or ship surveys, will be investigated in detail. Profiling 

 current meters, expendable BT's, and other instruments will be kept 

 aboard the ships for this purpose. Two or three spare instrumented 

 moorings will be kept aboard Yaquina for short-term deployment to study 

 such transient features. ? 



Oregon is a region of climatologically expected upwelling. Because 

 of the earth's rotation, southerly winds blowing along the coast to- 

 ward the equator produce an offshore component in the flow of the surface 

 layers of the sea, necessitating an upwelling of sub-surface water near 

 the coast. 



From a synthesis of past studies off Oregon a conceptual model of 

 the flow field in a coastal upwelling region has been developed as dia- 

 grammed in Figure 17 : 



a. Because of the near-surface, offshore Ekman drift induced by 

 the favorable winds, cold salty water is upwelled from a depth of 100 

 to 200 meters and reaches the surface in a band from the coastline to 

 10 kilometers offshore. 



b. The water in this nearshore band is separated from warmer, 

 fresher water at the surface offshore by an inclined frontal layer (pycno- 

 cline). After upwelling has established itself (in about a week) the 

 inclined frontal layer is virtually stationary for about 150 days. Though 

 winds favorable to upwelling persist, the inclined frontal layer does not 

 propagate further offshore, suggesting the formation of a one-sided sur- 

 face convergence and a change in dynamics from essentially advective to 

 diffusive and advective. 



