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Ref. No. [UMCES] CBL 2016-014
ACT VS16-05
31
Moored Deployment at Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL)
An eleven week moored field test was conducted in Chesapeake Bay from May 20 to
August 5, 2015. The deployment was located at 38.32°N, 76.45°W attached to the side of a pier at
the mouth of the Patuxent River (Photo 2.) The site was brackish with an average water depth of
the test site was 2.2 m.
Photo 2.
Aerial view of CBL deployment site (left) and duplicate sampling at mooring rack.
Time series results of ambient conditions for tidal height, temperature, and salinity are
given in figure 2. Temperature ranged from 19.2 to 30.1 and salinity from 4.7 to 13.7 over the
duration of the field test. The bottom panel displays the maximum difference recorded between all
reference thermistors (RBR Solo and SBE26) mounted at the same depth and different locations
across the mooring rack. The average temperature difference observed across the space of the
mooring rack was 0.21 ±0.25
o
C, with a maximum of 3.26
o
C. Differences between instrument and
reference readings resulting from this variability should be minimized as the sampling bottle
integrates across the mooring space.
The HL4 was deployed on shore power due to the length of the deployment. Over the 4
th
of
July weekend the cable was severed underwater, shorting the instrument. Upon return to the
manufacturer, only 5 days of data was recovered from the instrument, however, it is not certain
whether the instrument stopped functioning on 5/25 or whether data was lost due to the impact of
the cord being severed and shorting out the instrument. The DS5X sonde was also deployed at this
field site but a programming error by ACT personnel resulted in the instrument not being fully
enabled for the deployment.