Buoyancy and wind forcing of a coastal current

摘要: Local winds and lateral buoyancy fluxes from estuaries constitute two major forcing mechanisms on the inner continental shelf of Mid Atlantic Bight eastern seaboard U.S.A. We report observations resulting coastal current that suggest a linear superposition wind forced motions. This current, which we term Delaware Coastal Current, has mean flow about 10 cm/s in direction Kelvin wave phase propagation. It opposes generally upwelling favorable local there. The same winds, however, force important across-shelf flows agree qualitatively with Ekman dynamics numbers are 0( 1). Velocity fluctuations at meter mooring consistent above dynamics, explain hydrography well. Trajectories drifters derived velocity fields, too, reveal patterns. further find Lagrangian Eulerian integral time scales similar, implying field. estimate dispersion coefficients for this driven to be 2000 200 mz/s along- direction, respectively. Our results disagree both quantitatively those recent numerical model study area.