SCOPE Experiment bathymetry survey, Santa Rosa Island, Florida, December 2013

Bathymetric measurements were obtained from a combination of walking surveys (humans with GPS backpacks) near-shore and hydro-surveys (ship-based) further off-shore near Santa Rosa Island, Florida. They were obtained in the context of the Surfzone Coastal Oil Pathway Experiment (SCOPE), focused on measuring the inner-shelf and surf-zone processes responsible for oil transport. The intensive three-week SCOPE field campaign also employed a cross-shore array of fixed instruments to measure winds, waves, currents, and water properties from 10 m water depth to the shoreline; surface drifters; dye releases; and moving-vessel measuring platforms. This unique set of observations is valuable both for quantifying nearshore physics and mixing estimates, and for assessing nearshore model forecasts. The observations captured a wide range of wind- and wave-forcing due to a number of synoptic winter storms that occurred during the experiment. This dataset was created by the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE). This research was made possible by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.