Three-dimensional salt dynamics in well-mixed estuaries: influence of estuarine convergence, coriolis, and bathymetry

Wei, Xiaoyan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8407-6958; Kumar, Mohit; Schuttelaars, Henk M.. 2017 Three-dimensional salt dynamics in well-mixed estuaries: influence of estuarine convergence, coriolis, and bathymetry. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 47 (7). 1843-1871. 10.1175/JPO-D-16-0247.1

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Text © Copyright 2017 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 Page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the AMS’s permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a web site or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy, available on the AMS Web site located at (http://www.ametsoc.org/) or from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or copyrights@ametsoc.org. jpo-d-16-0247.1.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

A semianalytical three-dimensional model is set up to dynamically calculate the coupled water motion and salinity for idealized well-mixed estuaries and prognostically investigate the influence of each physical mechanism on the residual salt transport. As a study case, a schematized estuary with an exponentially converging width and a channel–shoal structure is considered. The temporal correlation between horizontal tidal velocities and tidal salinities is the dominant process for the landward residual salt transport. The residual salt transport induced by residual circulation is locally significant, but the induced salt transport integrated over the cross section is small. The impacts of the estuarine geometry, Coriolis force, and bathymetry on the salt dynamics are studied using three dedicated experiments, in which the impact of each of these factors is studied separately. To assess the impact of width convergence, a convergent estuary without bathymetric variations or Coriolis force is considered. In this experiment, the temporal correlation between tidal velocities and salinities is the only landward salt transport process. In the second experiment, Coriolis effects are included. This results in a significant residual salt transport cell due to the advection of the tidally averaged salinity by residual circulation, with salt imported into the estuary from the left side and exported on the right (looking seaward). In the last experiment, a lateral channel–shoal structure is included while the Coriolis effects are excluded. This results in a significant landward salt transport through the deeper channel and a seaward salt transport over the shoals due to the advection of the tidally averaged salinity by residual circulation.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1175/JPO-D-16-0247.1
ISSN:	0022-3670
Date made live:	18 Aug 2017 15:37 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/517642

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