P4.1
A synoptic description of surface currents and winds at the Delaware Bay mouth
Philip A. Muscarella, College of Marine and Earth Studies, University of Delaware, Newark, DE; and N. P. Barton, B. L. Lipphardt, Jr., D. E. Veron, K. C. Wong, and A. D. Kirwan, Jr.
A consistent picture of the circulation of the Delaware Bay estuary and adjacent inner shelf has been established in the literature based on a synthesis of mooring and hydrographic data complemented by elegant theoretical analyses. Here, we examine synoptic HF-radar surface currents just outside the Delaware Bay mouth for an eight-month period (October 2007 through May 2008) and model surface winds over the entire bay mouth region for several months during the analysis period. Unlike the traditional measurements, the surface currents and winds are determined hourly with spatial resolutions of 1.5 km (surface currents) and 1 km (winds). Our analysis corroborates earlier findings that showed the surface currents are dominated by M2 tides. At the bay mouth the tidal currents are of the order of 1 m s-1 while the subtidal currents are of the order of 0.1 m s-1. Over most of the region outside the bay mouth, surface currents are highly variable, with standard deviations that are typically two to five times the mean values. Monthly mean surface currents show a strong plume exiting the southern bay mouth along the Delaware River channel as well as a persistent cross-mouth flow toward the southwest. For the month-long wind analysis periods, winds at 10 m were much more spatially uniform than the surface currents. In contrast with the surface currents, the winds were much less variable, with standard deviations that were only one-half of the means.
Poster Session 4, POSTERS: Small-Scale Studies
Wednesday, 14 January 2009, 2:30 PM-4:00 PM, Hall 5
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