The temperature and salinity characteristics of Puget Sound and Strait of Juan de Fuca based on the M. V. CATALYST observations of 1932 to 1942
A 1956 thesis submitted in partial fulfillment ot the requirement for degree of Master of Science, University of Washington
Exerpt from 1.1 History and purpose of investigation
Until recent years the temperature and salinity characteristics of Puget Sound and adjacent waters have been known only in a general way. This was in part due to lack of facilities for making a series of continuous observations of a detailed nature. In 1951 the former Oceanographic Laboratories, now the Department of Oceanography of the University of' Washington, was established and in 1952 an oceanographic veseel, the M. V. CATALYST, was put into service. Subsequently temperature, salinity, and other water properties were measured, at first intermittently, but on a more or less regular and continuing basis until early 1942. The oceanographic program was inactive during the war years 1942 to 1946. Beginning in 1948 field work was resumed on a limited scale using the School of Fisheries vessel M. V. Oncorhynchus, and this program was intensified with the acquisition of the M. V. BROWN BEAR in 1952, ten years after the withdrawal of the CATALYST. The coordination of the early CATALYST findings has been needed to ilucidate the physical oceanography of the region and to serve as a guide to future studies.
The study outlined herein was started in 1949-50 and resumed in 1955-56 and is intended as a contribution to the coordination and analysis of the temperature and salinity data whioh have been collected. It is a descriptive study of the time and space distributions of the temperature and salinity of Puget Sound and adjacent waters. Its aims are three: (1) To organize and process the available data collected from 1932 to 1942 into a convenient form to aid other workers on the physical structure of the waters of the region; (2) To determine and interpret the seasonal changes that occur in different parts of the water column and area; and (3) To set up a basis for comparing future similar observations and to serve as a background for their detailed use. With this three-fold purpose, the limits of the study were arbitrarily set to exclude details which will merit separate studies as supplementary data become available. Although certain of the observations made during the period 1948-55 are referred to in explaining or extending the earlier information, no analysis of these later data per se has been attempted.
