Measuring Estuarine Total Exchange Flow From Discrete Observations

Abstract

The exchange between estuaries and the coastal ocean is a key dynamical driver impacting biogeochemical patterns such as nutrient and phytoplankton concentrations within the estuary (e.g., Boyer et al., 2002;Brown & Ozretich, 2009) and in the coastal ocean (e.g., Davis et al., 2014). This exchange can regulate estuarine residence time, hypoxia, and acidification (e.g., MacCready et al., 2021;O'Callaghan et al., 2007). Estuaries deliver terrigenous material to the ocean including sediment, larvae, and pollutants. Estuaries can also impact coastal circulation by delivering river runoff into the coastal margins (e.g., Banas et al., 2009;Giddings et al., 2014;Mazzini et al., 2014). Our ability to accurately observe the exchange at the estuary-ocean interface is therefore important to understanding the physics, biology, chemistry, and coupling of estuarine and coastal ecosystems. Exchange flows are also important mechanisms in the transport and mixing of water masses through inland seas

Quantification of Physical and Numerical Mixing in a Coastal Ocean Model Using Salinity Variance Budgets

“…Due to the recent invention of the theory, TEF has only been applied to numerical model output. However, a recent paper by Lemagie et al (2022) suggested how TEF may be measured with field observations.…”

“…However, a recent paper by Lemagie et al. (2022) suggested how TEF may be measured with field observations.…”

Estuarine Exchange Flow in the Salish Sea

“…TEF is only one of several estuarine salt flux decompositions we could have used (Chen et al., 2012; Garcia & Geyer, 2023; Geyer & MacCready, 2014; Lemagie et al., 2022). The advantage of TEF, especially in the budget (4), is that it allows separate consideration of the exchange flow, here taken as synonymous with Q in , and the salinity difference it acts on, Δ S .…”