Measurements of 3-D Circulation and Dispersion in Skagit Bay from Lagrangian Drifters

: The first objective of the program was to develop an efficient sampling scheme to measure the flow in the shallow estuarine and coastal environments and to provide the partners of the project with three-dimensional circulation data and horizontal dispersion estimates of the particles in the surface flow. Our self-training period resulted in the acquisition of the operational experience to manage an array of RD as well as identifying the optimal set of mission parameters of the RD in different environmental conditions. The second objective was to measure the flow within the plume of the Tijuana River as well as the circulation in adjacent coastal sea. The third objective was to redesign and re-build the firmware of the RD to add new capabilities to the instrument, such as two-way communication, deployment and recovery modes, power saving mode and high frequency GPS.