Host Jessica Leigh Lebos welcomes Dr. Catherine Edwards, a coastal physical oceanographer and professor at UGA’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, to discuss how coastal ocean physics shapes ecosystems and forecasting.

Edwards describes her path from music and Spanish into applied physics and oceanography, and explains her work measuring temperature, salinity, density, tides, waves, and currents across Georgia’s wide continental shelf using research vessels, seafloor instruments, and autonomous gliders. She connects coastal processes to carbon export and sequestration, the Gulf Stream’s influence, and why real-time glider profiles improve hurricane intensity forecasts, including rapid intensification risk.

Edwards also details using quiet gliders with hydrophones to detect North Atlantic right whale calls, confirm detections with analysts, and send alerts through NOAA to tools like Whale Alert and Whale Map to help slow ships. The conversation includes river-driven events like undammed flood pulses reaching Gray’s Reef and a myth-busting aside about toilet swirl direction.

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FIND A FAVORITE SPOT IN THIS EPISODE:

00:00 Welcome to Tybee Podcast

01:01 Meet Dr Edwards

01:38 Path Into Oceanography

04:22 Coastal Physics Explained

05:45 Tools and Measurements

07:30 El Nino and Carbon

11:10 Hurricanes and Heat

12:18 Gliders and Right Whales

16:38 Whale Alerts to Mariners

18:25 Radars and Rescue

20:16 Defining Local Waters

21:37 Rivers and Flood Pulses

24:38 Altamaha Flood at Grays Reef

27:54 Do Oceans Really Mix

30:39 Gulf Stream Basics

32:54 Myths and Wrap Up

33:38 Next Tropical Research

36:37 Thanks and Membership