This project addresses the need for an expansion in the monitoring of marine environments by providing a detailed description of a low cost, robust, user friendly sonde, built on Arduino Mega 2560 (Mega) and Arduino Uno (Uno) platforms. The sonde can be made without specialized tools or training and can be easily modified to meet individual application requirements. The platform allows for internal logging of multiple parameters of which conductivity, temperature, and GPS position are demonstrated. Two design configurations for different coastal hydrographic applications are highlighted to show the robust and versatile nature of this sensor platform. The initial sonde design was intended for use on a Lagrangian style surface drifter that recorded measurements of temperature; salinity; and position for a deployment duration of less than 24 h. Functional testing of the sensor consisted of a 55 h comparison with a regularly maintained water quality sensor (i.e., YSI 6600 sonde) in Mobile Bay, AL. The temperature and salinity data were highly correlated and had acceptable RMS errors of 0.154 °C and 1.35 psu for the environmental conditions. A second application using the sonde platform was designed for longer duration (~3–4 weeks); subsurface (1.5–4.0 m depths) deployment, moored to permanent structures. Design alterations reflected an emphasis on minimizing power consumption, which included the elimination of the GPS capabilities, increased battery capacity, and power-saving software modifications. The sonde designs presented serve as templates that will expand the hydrographic measurement capabilities of ocean scientists, students, and teachers.

Exposure to extreme events is a major concern in coastal regions where growing human populations and stressed natural ecosystems are at significant risk to such phenomena. However, the complex sequence of processes that transform an event from notable to extreme can be challenging to identify and hence, limit forecast abilities. Here, we show an extreme heat content event (i.e., a marine heatwave) in coastal waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico resulted from compounding effects of a tropical storm followed by an atmospheric heatwave. This newly identified process of generating extreme ocean temperatures occurred prior to landfall of Hurricane Michael during October of 2018 and, as critical contributor to storm intensity, likely contributed to the subsequent extreme hurricane. This pattern of compounding processes will also exacerbate other environmental problems in temperature-sensitive ecosystems (e.g., coral bleaching, hypoxia) and is expected to have expanding impacts under global warming predictions.

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Coastal cities and ports are located along estuaries and deltas where flooding from rivers can be as devastating as storm surges. Precise river discharge measurements are taken far inland of marine influences and backwater environments, creating large timing and magnitude uncertainties downstream at the coast. Long‐term discharge, water level, velocity, and salinity measurements in coastal Alabama were used to observe the timing and magnitude of discharge events flowing 238 km from rivers to the Gulf of Mexico as river flood (fluvial) waves. Waves were described and simplified using a momentum balance, phasing techniques, and wave theory from inland rivers. Results showed the coastal backwater environment transitioned to a drawdown (i.e., plunging water profile) at bankfull discharge and suggested the drawdown location and intensity was strongly influenced by the frictional transition of the delta from tupelo‐cypress forest to oligohaline marsh. The horizontal (velocity) and vertical (water level) components of fluvial waves were observed propagating through this dynamic deltaic‐estuarine environment transitioning from in phase diffusive waves to out of phase dynamic waves. The wave celerity increased with surface water slope and decreased with cross‐sectional area. Instead of larger events propagating faster, the geometry (i.e., levees and floodplains) and flooding significantly delayed and attenuated the magnitude of discharge reaching the gulf. This flooding downstream of discharge measurements modulated the estuarine water level, velocity, and flushing of salt. The use of fluvial wave theory will increase the precision of coastal flooding predictions for stakeholders and research now, as well as under future sea level rise.

Declines in shark populations have sparked researchers and fishery managers to investigate more prudent approaches to the conservation of these fish. As managers strive to improve data collection for stock assessment, fisheries‐independent surveys have expanded to include data‐deficient areas such as coastal regions. To that end, a catch series from a nearshore survey off Alabama was combined with data from a concurrent offshore survey with identical methodology to examine the depth use of sharks across the continental shelf (2–366 m). The combined data set contained 22 species of sharks collected from 1995 to 2008: 21 species in the offshore data set (1995–2008) and 12 species in the nearshore data set (2006–2008). Depth was a significant factor determining species' distributions, primarily for Atlantic sharpnose Rhizoprionodon terraenovae, blacknose Carcharhinus acronotus, and blacktip C. limbatus sharks. Blacknose sharks had the highest catch per unit effort (CPUE) in the middepth stratum (10–30 m), blacktip sharks had consistently higher CPUE in the shallow depth stratum (<10 m), and Atlantic sharpnose sharks showed high abundance throughout both the shallow and middepth strata. Length frequency and sex ratio analyses suggest that Atlantic sharpnose and blacknose sharks are using waters greater than 30 m deep for parturition, whereas adult blacktip sharks are probably using shallow waters for parturition. Our abundance patterns illustrate a continuum of depth use across the inner continental shelf. Surveys that do not encompass the entirety of this ecosystem fail to accurately characterize the distributions of these important predators.

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River discharge, and its resulting region of freshwater influence (ROFI) in the coastal ocean, has a critical influence on physical and biogeochemical processes in seasonally stratified shelf ecosystems. Multi-year (2010-2016) observations of satellite-derived sea surface salinity (SSS) and in situ water column hydrographic data during summer 2016 were used to investigate physical aspects of the ROFI east of the Mississippi River Delta to better assess regional susceptibility to hypoxia in the summer months. Time series of SSS data indicate that the shelf region impacted by the seasonal expansion of freshwater can be as extensive as the well-known "dead zone" region west of the Delta, and hydrographic observations from a shelf-wide survey indicate strong stratification associated with the ROFI. Peak buoyancy frequencies typically ranged between 0.15 and 0.25 s −1 and were concentrated in a 2-3 m layer around 4-10 m deep across much of the shelf. This ROFI is expected to be influenced by local freshwater sources which, while individually small, make a notable contribution in aggregate to the region (annually averaged daily discharge of approximately 2880 m 3 s −1). The dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions under this freshwater cap were spatially and temporally variable, with areas of hypoxia and nearhypoxic conditions over portions of the shelf, demonstrating the utility of satellite-derived SSS in identifying coastal areas potential vulnerability to hypoxia. These regions of low bottom dissolved oxygen persisted throughout the peak summer season at several sites on the shelf, with the northeastern corner of Mississippi Bight having the most intense and persistent hypoxia.

Flushing of an estuary quantifies the overall water exchange between the estuary and coastal ocean and is crucially important for water quality as well as biological and geochemical processes within the system. Flushing times and freshwater age in Mobile Bay were numerically calculated under realistic and various controlled forcing conditions. Their responses to external forcing were explained by the three-dimensional characteristics of general circulation in the system. The flushing time ranges from 10 to 33 days under the 25th-75th percentile river discharges, nearly half of the previous estimates based on barotropic processes only, suggesting the important contribution of baroclinic processes. Their influence, quantified as the "new ocean influx," is on the same order of the river discharge under low to moderate river discharge conditions. The baroclinic influence increases and then decreases with increasing river discharge, aligning with the response of horizontal density gradient. By enhancing the net influx from the ocean mainly through density-driven circulation, baroclinic processes contribute to reduce flushing times. The three-dimensional circulation, which differs greatly between the wet and dry seasons, explains the temporal and spatial variations of the flushing characteristics. Wind forcing influences the three-dimensional circulation in the system with easterly and northerly winds tending to reduce the flushing time, while southerly and westerly winds the opposite.There are commonly two classes of methods to estimate this timescale, one based on volume and flux and the other based on time series of tracer concentrations. The first class of approaches has been widely DU ET AL.4518