Temporal variability of physical and biogeochemical properties in the vicinity of the Chesapeake Bay mouth

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest and most productive estuary in the United States, located in the Mid-Atlantic region, it encompasses six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia) and the District of Columbia, with nearly 18 million people living within its watershed. The Bay plays a vital ecological and economic role in the region, supporting tourism, fishing and aquaculture, and serving as nursery habitat for many commercial fisheries species. Climate change is a serious concern threatening the health of Bay, and a number of long-term observational programs and modeling efforts have been developed to better understand physical and biogeochemical properties and processes in this complex system. Nevertheless, observations in the coastal ocean adjacent to the Bay are still scarce, and therefore less is known about changes in the oceanic source waters for the Bay. To fill in this gap, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) has developed a pilot coastal ocean observatory at the inner-shelf region adjacent to the Bay mouth. Preliminary results from a two month-long time series of physical (currents, sea level, salinity, temperature) and biogeochemical (dissolved oxygen, pH, chlorophyll) properties, collected using a moored bottom tripod during Spring-2024 will be presented and discussed.