Long-term Oceanographic Observations in Western Massachusetts Bay Offshore of Boston, Massachusetts: Data Report for 1989-2002

Long-term oceanographic observations have been made at two locations in western Massachusetts Bay: (1) Site A (42ý 22.6' N, 70ý 47.0' W, 33 m water depth) from from 1989 to 2002, and (2) Site B (42ý 9.8' N, 70ý 38.4' W, 21 m deter depth) from 1997 to 2002. Site A is approximately 1 km south of the new ocean outfall that began discharging treated sewage effluent from the Boston metropolitan area into Massachusetts Bay in September 2000. These long-term oceanographic observations have been collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in partnership with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) and with logistical support from the U. S. Coast Guard (USCG). This report presents time series data collected through December 2002, updating a similar report that presented data through December 2000 (Butman and others, 2002).

The long-term observations at these two stations are part of a USGS study designed to understand the transport and long-term fate of sediments and associated contaminants in the Massachusetts Bays (see //woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/bostonharbor / and Butman and Bothner, 1997). The long-term observations document seasonal and inter-annual changes in currents, hydrography, and suspended-matter concentration in western Massachusetts Bay, and the importance of infrequent catastrophic events, such as major storms or hurricanes, in sediment resuspension and transport. They also provide observations for testing numerical models of circulation.

This data report presents a description of the field program and instrumentation, an overview of the data through summary plots and statistics, and the data in NetCDF and ASCII format for the period December 1989 through December 2002. The objective of this report is to make the data available in digital form, and to provide summary plots and statistics to facilitate browsing of the long-term data set .

[Summary provided by the USGS.]