Stress, Salt Flux, and Dynamics of a Partially Mixed Estuary
Abstract
A field study was performed in the lower Hudson River, a partially mixed estuary with a relatively simple geometry between August and October of 1995. The objectives of the study were: (1) to quantify and characterize the turbulent transport of momentum and salt, and (2) to relate the turbulent transport processes to the local and estuary-wide dynamics. The measurement program consisted of fixed and shipboard components. At a central site, a moored array of temperature-conductivity sensors and optical backscatter sensors (OBS), a bottom-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP), and a bottom-mounted array of acoustic travel-time current sensors (BASS), temperature-conductivity sensors, and OBS sensors resolved the vertical structure of velocity, salinity and turbidity and the near-bottom turbulence structure. Moored and bottom-mounted velocity, temperature, conductivity and pressure sensors at five secondary sites quantified the spatial and temporal variability of velocity, salinity and bottom pressure. Shipboard measurements with an ADCP and a conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profiler, accompanied by an OBS sensor, resolved the spatial structure and tidal variability of velocity, salinity and turbidity along several cross-channel and along-channel transects. This report describes the measurements in detail. Section II describes the instrumentation, Section III describes the deployment and sampling schemes, Section IV describes the data processing, and Section V is a summary of plots of selected data. Section VI documents the data files and Sections VII and VIII give acknowledgments and references.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA354762
Entities
People
- A. J. Williams Iii
- J. J. Fredericks
- John H. Trowbridge
- Melissa Browen
- Wayne Rockwell Geyer
Organizations
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution