To a first order approximation, there is a geostrophic flow in the ocean interior where temporal Rossby, Rossby and Ekman numbers are assumed to be small. The barotropic component of this flow results from the balance between the horizontal components of the Coriolis and pressure gradient forces where pressure gradients result from gradient in sea level (Cushman-Roisin & Beckers, 2012). Typically, the subinertial (defined here as timescales greater than 2-day) sea level gradient in the open ocean can be attributed to changes of currents in accordance with geostrophic balance. However, the dominance of the geostrophic balance becomes less certain on continental shelves (Lentz & Fewings, 2012). This is partly due to the varying bathymetry and stratification, both of which can contribute to the separation or overlap of the surface and bottom boundary layers (Lentz & Fewings, 2012), as well as the prevalence of high frequency (HF) non-linear processes (e.g., surface gravity waves; Woodworth et al., 2019). These changes in ocean dynamics complicates continental shelf processes
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