Tracking the Surface Flow in Lake Champlain

An initial view of subsurface Lagrangian observations in Lake Champlain: General patterns, cross-lake flow and coastal currents

“…As depth increased past 25 m, circular motion became more elliptical due to confining bottom topography. The second regime was that of the nearshore environment where net displacements, primarily determined from deployment and resurfacing positions as well as previously known circulation dynamics of the region (e.g., McCormick et al, 2008),suggest the presence of more linear to curvilinear motion. This pattern was found to span epilimnic, metalimnic and hypolimnic waters to the extent that they could be in depths less than 20 m. The lack of any underwater tracking also supports the premise that they were most likely within acoustically shallow water.…”

“…Hydrodynamics of Lake Champlain have been studied over the past 30 years using methods ranging free drifting cards and bottles to acoustic Doppler current meters (ADCPs) and surface drogues (Manley, 2004;Manley et al, 1993Manley et al, , 1999McCormick et al, 2008;Myer and Gruendling, 1979). Basic understanding of Main Lake circulation from these observations showed that it is primarily governed by a dynamic internal seiche with a period of~4.25 days during stratified times .…”

Drifters, Drogues, and Circulation

“…(1) design and fabrication of the surface drifters by using the mathematical concepts of buoyancy, (2) Murthy, 1975), (5) kinetics (Richardson, 1983), or (6) more advanced concepts of Lagrangian integral length and time scales (McCormick et al, 2006(McCormick et al, , 2008, provided enough data have been collected.…”