Observations at the tidal plume front of a high‐volume river outflow

Orton, Philip M.; Jay, David A.

doi:10.1029/2005gl022372

Cited by 101 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Also, in an unsteady or pulsing jet, enhanced entrainment may occur at the propagating plume front. Indeed, there have been many observations of geophysical scale propagating plume fronts (recently, O'Donnell et al, 1998;Nash and Moum, 2001;Orton and Jay, 2005). However, even the small scale dynamics of the propagating front are influenced by the global near-field plume properties, such as width.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spreading in the near-field Merrimack River plume

Hetland

MacDonald

2008

Ocean Modelling

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spreading in the near-field Merrimack River plume

Hetland

MacDonald

2008

Ocean Modelling

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“…River plumes can influence the temperature and salinity of adjacent waters and also modulate strong convergence, vertical velocities and mixing in the frontal region (e.g. Orton et al, 2005). Coastal river plumes are the main pathways from the continent to the ocean.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring spatio-temporal variability of the Adour River turbid plume (Bay of Biscay, France) with MODIS 250-m imagery

Petus

Marieu

Novoa

et al. 2014

Continental Shelf Research

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This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting galley proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. AbstractIncreased loads of land-based pollutants through river plumes are a major threat to the coastal water quality, ecosystems and sanitary heath. Identifying the coastal areas impacted by potentially polluted freshwaters is necessary to inform management policies and prevent degradation of the coastal environment. This study presents the first monitoring of the Adour River turbid plume (south-eastern Bay of Biscay, France) using multi-annual MODIS data Satellite data are processed using a regional algorithm that allows quantifying and mapping suspended matter in coastal waters. The results are used to investigate the spatial and temporal variability of the Adour River turbid plume and to identify the risk of exposure of coastal ecosystems to the turbid plume waters. Changes in river plume orientation and extent as well as suspended matter concentration rates discharged through the river are correlated to the main hydro-climatic forcings acting in the south-eastern Bay of Biscay. The Adour River turbid plume is shown to be a highly reactive system mainly controlled by the river discharge rates and modulated by the wind changes. Despite the relatively small size of the Adour River, the Adour River turbid plume can have a non-negligible impact on the water quality of the southern Bay of Biscay and the MSM and associated contaminant/nutrients transported within the Adour turbid river plume have the potential to be disseminated far away along the northern shoreline or offshore. The main areas of influence of the river plume are defined over multi-annual (3 years) and seasonal periods. The results presented in this study show the potential of 250-m MODIS images to monitor small river plumes systems and support management and assessment of the water quality in the south-eastern Bay of Biscay.Key words: water quality, River plume, MODIS-Aqua; mineral suspended matters, spatiotemporal variability, Adour estuary. IntroductionAssessment of water quality has become a major issue worldwide and is illustrated in Europe by the implementation of the Water Framework, the Quality of Bathing Waters and the (MSFD, 2008/56/EC), respectively. These directives mainly focus on preventing the degradation of aquatic ecosystems due to anthropogenic pressures. The evaluation of the water quality status is based on the measurement of relevant water quality parameters. Among biological parameters are the composition, abundance and biomass of phytoplankton, the frequency and intensity of blooms and their influences on the water turbidity , Ferreira et al., 2011. Phy...

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“…There is a large literature on river plumes covering both theory, laboratory experiments, and measurements, see for instance Imberger (1987, 1989), O'Donnell et al (1998), Horner-Devine et al (2006, Nash and Moum (2005), Pan et al (2007) and Orton and Jay (2005). River plumes have also been studied with numerical models (Baptista et al 2005;Hetland 2005;MacCready et al 2009).…”

Section: Dynamics Of a River Plumementioning

confidence: 98%

The surface boundary condition in nonhydrostatic ocean models

Bergh

Berntsen

2009

Ocean Dynamics

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With increasing resolution in numerical ocean models, nonhydrostatic pressure effects have to be accounted for. In sigma-coordinate mode split ocean models, this pressure may be regarded as a pressure correction. An elliptic equation must be solved for the nonhydrostatic pressure, and the gradients are used to correct the provisional hydrostatic velocity components in each time step. The focus in the present work is on the surface boundary condition for the elliptic equation. In the literature, both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions are suggested and applied. To investigate the sensitivity of the numerical results to the choice of boundary condition, three numerical experiments are performed. The first and second experiments are studies of the propagation and steepening of nonlinear internal waves. The first study is on tank scale and the second experiment is on ocean scale. In the tankscale experiment, the density and the flow fields are very robust to the choice of boundary condition. In the ocean-scale experiment, the waves produced with a Dirichlet boundary condition become more damped than the waves produced with a Neumann boundary condition. The third study involves a surface buoyant jet. It is shown that well-known characteristics of the Responsible Editor: Tal Ezer plume front are reproduced with a Neumann boundary condition, but the rotating turbulent core of this front is lost with a Dirichlet condition. It is accordingly argued that the appropriate surface boundary condition in mode split nonhydrostatic ocean models is the Neumann condition.

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Observations at the tidal plume front of a high‐volume river outflow

Cited by 101 publications

References 14 publications

Spreading in the near-field Merrimack River plume

Spreading in the near-field Merrimack River plume

Monitoring spatio-temporal variability of the Adour River turbid plume (Bay of Biscay, France) with MODIS 250-m imagery

The surface boundary condition in nonhydrostatic ocean models

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