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  • Sediment transport  (6)
  • Estuarine circulation  (4)
  • Shear structure/flows  (3)
  • Friction
  • 1
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 110 (2005): C09025, doi:10.1029/2004JC002727.
    Description: A large flood of the Eel River, northern California, created a thick sediment deposit between water depths of 50 and 70 m in January 1997. The freshwater plume, however, confined sediment delivery to water depths shallower than 30 m. Mechanisms proposed to explain the apparent cross-shelf transport include dispersal by oceanographic currents, resuspension by energetic waves, and gravitationally forced transport of a thin layer of fluidized mud. Field observations indicate that these processes were all active but cannot determine their relative significance or whether these mechanisms alone explain the location, size, and timing of deposition. Approximately 30% of the sediment delivered by the Eel River is accounted for in the midshelf mud bed and inner shelf, but the fate of the remaining 70% is uncertain. A three-dimensional, hydrodynamic model was used to examine potential mechanisms of sediment transport on the Eel River shelf. The model includes suspended sediment transport and was modified to account for a thin, near-bed layer of fluidized mud. It was used to simulate flood dispersal on the Eel River shelf, to compare the relative importance of transport within the near-bed fluid mud layer to suspended sediment transport, and to evaluate sediment budgets for floods. Settling properties of fine-grained sediment, both within the flood plume and the fluid mud layer, critically impact depositional patterns. To a lesser degree, wind-driven ocean currents influence the volume of sediment that escapes the shelf, and wave magnitude affects the cross-shelf location of flood deposits. Though dilute suspension accounts for a large fraction of total flux, cross-shelf transport by gravitational forcing appears necessary to produce a midshelf mud deposit similar in volume, location, and timing to those seen offshore of the Eel River.
    Description: The Office of Naval Research’s Coastal Geoscience Program supported this through program N0014-01-1-008.
    Keywords: Flood sediment dispersal ; Northern California shelf ; Sediment transport
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 107-124, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3952.1.
    Description: In most estuarine systems it is assumed that the dominant along-channel momentum balance is between the integrated pressure gradient and bed stress. Scaling the amplitude of the estuarine circulation based on this balance has been shown to have predictive skill. However, a number of authors recently highlighted important nonlinear processes that contribute to the subtidal dynamics at leading order. In this study, a previously validated numerical model of the Hudson River estuary is used to examine the forces driving the residual estuarine circulation and to test the predictive skill of two linear scaling relationships. Results demonstrate that the nonlinear advective acceleration terms contribute to the subtidal along-channel momentum balance at leading order. The contribution of these nonlinear terms is driven largely by secondary lateral flows. Under a range of forcing conditions in the model runs, the advective acceleration terms nearly always act in concert with the baroclinic pressure gradient, reinforcing the residual circulation. Despite the strong contribution of the nonlinear advective terms to the subtidal dynamical balance, a linear scaling accurately predicts the strength of the observed residual circulation in the model. However, this result is largely fortuitous, as this scaling does not account for two processes that are fundamental to the estuarine circulation. The skill of this scaling results because of the compensatory relationship between the contribution of the advective acceleration terms and the suppression of turbulence due to density stratification. Both of these processes, neither of which is accounted for in the linear scaling, increase the residual estuarine circulation but have an opposite dependence on tidal amplitude and, consequently, strength of stratification.
    Description: This research was supported by the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries—Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution postdoctoral fellowship program, as well as NSF Grants OCE-0452054 and OCE-0451740.
    Keywords: Advection ; Estuarine circulation ; Friction ; Density currents ; Baroclinic flows
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 1859-1877, doi:10.1175/jpo3088.1.
    Description: A series of dye releases in the Hudson River estuary elucidated diapycnal mixing rates and temporal variability over tidal and fortnightly time scales. Dye was injected in the bottom boundary layer for each of four releases during different phases of the tide and of the spring–neap cycle. Diapycnal mixing occurs primarily through entrainment that is driven by shear production in the bottom boundary layer. On flood the dye extended vertically through the bottom mixed layer, and its concentration decreased abruptly near the base of the pycnocline, usually at a height corresponding to a velocity maximum. Boundary layer growth is consistent with a one-dimensional, stress-driven entrainment model. A model was developed for the vertical structure of the vertical eddy viscosity in the flood tide boundary layer that is proportional to u2*/N∞, where u* and N∞ are the bottom friction velocity and buoyancy frequency above the boundary layer. The model also predicts that the buoyancy flux averaged over the bottom boundary layer is equal to 0.06N∞u2* or, based on the structure of the boundary layer equal to 0.1NBLu2*, where NBL is the buoyancy frequency across the flood-tide boundary layer. Estimates of shear production and buoyancy flux indicate that the flux Richardson number in the flood-tide boundary layer is 0.1–0.18, consistent with the model indicating that the flux Richardson number is between 0.1 and 0.14. During ebb, the boundary layer was more stratified, and its vertical extent was not as sharply delineated as in the flood. During neap tide the rate of mixing during ebb was significantly weaker than on flood, owing to reduced bottom stress and stabilization by stratification. As tidal amplitude increased ebb mixing increased and more closely resembled the boundary layer entrainment process observed during the flood. Tidal straining modestly increased the entrainment rate during the flood, and it restratified the boundary layer and inhibited mixing during the ebb.
    Description: The work was supported by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE00-95972 (W. Geyer, J. Lerczak), OCE00-99310 (R. Houghton), and OCE00-95913 (R. Chant, E. Hunter).
    Keywords: Estuaries ; Boundary layer ; Mixing ; Tides ; Friction
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 4
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2012. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Continental Shelf Research 60, Suppl. (2013): S40–S57, doi:10.1016/j.csr.2012.02.004.
    Description: Tidal flats at a river mouth feature estuarine and fluvial processes that distinguish them from tidal flats without river discharge. We combine field observations and a numerical model to investigate hydrodynamics and sediment transport on deltaic tidal flats at the mouth of the Skagit River, in Puget Sound, WA during the spring freshet. River discharge over tidal flats supplies a mean volume flux, freshwater buoyancy, and suspended sediment. Despite the shallow water depths, strong horizontal density fronts and stratification develop, resulting in a baroclinic pressure gradient and tidal variability in stratification that favor flood-directed bottom stresses. In addition to these estuarine processes, the river discharge during periods of low tide drains through a network of distributary channels on the exposed tidal flats, with strongly ebb-directed stresses. The net sediment transport depends on the balance between estuarine and fluvial processes, and is modulated on a spring-neap time scale by the tides of Puget Sound. We find that the baroclinic pressure gradient and periodic stratification enhance trapping of sediment delivered by the river on the tidal flats, particularly during neap tides, and that sediment trapping also depends on settling and scour lags, particularly for finer particles. The primary means of moving sediment off of the tidal flats are the high velocities and stresses in the distributary channels during late stages of ebbs and around low tides, with sediment export predominantly occurring during spring low tides that expose a greater portion of the flats. The 3-d finite volume numerical model was evaluated against observations and had good skill overall, particularly for velocity and salinity. The model performed poorly at simulating the shallow flows around low tides as the flats drained and river discharge was confined to distributary channels, due in part to limitations in grid resolution, seabed sediment and bathymetric data, and the wetting-and-drying scheme. Consequently, the model predicted greater sediment retention on the flats than was observed.
    Description: This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research.
    Keywords: Tidal flats ; Sediment transport ; Sediment trapping ; Distributary channels ; Stratification ; Salinity fronts ; Tidal asymmetry ; Velocity skewness ; Numerical model
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Preprint
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  • 5
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 855–868, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-10-05010.1.
    Description: Data from the Hudson River estuary demonstrate that the tidal variations in vertical salinity stratification are not consistent with the patterns associated with along-channel tidal straining. These observations result from three additional processes not accounted for in the traditional tidal straining model: 1) along-channel and 2) lateral advection of horizontal gradients in the vertical salinity gradient and 3) tidal asymmetries in the strength of vertical mixing. As a result, cross-sectionally averaged values of the vertical salinity gradient are shown to increase during the flood tide and decrease during the ebb. Only over a limited portion of the cross section does the observed stratification increase during the ebb and decrease during the flood. These observations highlight the three-dimensional nature of estuarine flows and demonstrate that lateral circulation provides an alternate mechanism that allows for the exchange of materials between surface and bottom waters, even when direct turbulent mixing through the pycnocline is prohibited by strong stratification.
    Description: The funding for this research was obtained from NSF Grant OCE-08-25226.
    Description: 2012-11-01
    Keywords: Mixing ; Ocean circulation ; Shear structure/flows ; Transport ; Turbulence
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 6
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2773–2789, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0031.1.
    Description: Tidal oscillatory salt transport, induced by the correlation between tidal variations in salinity and velocity, is an important term for the subtidal salt balance under the commonly used Eulerian method of salt transport decomposition. In this paper, its mechanisms in a partially stratified estuary are investigated with a numerical model of the Hudson estuary. During neap tides, when the estuary is strongly stratified, the tidal oscillatory salt transport is mainly due to the hydraulic response of the halocline to the longitudinal variation of topography. This mechanism does not involve vertical mixing, so it should not be regarded as oscillatory shear dispersion, but instead it should be regarded as advective transport of salt, which results from the vertical distortion of exchange flow obtained in the Eulerian decomposition by vertical fluctuations of the halocline. During spring tides, the estuary is weakly stratified, and vertical mixing plays a significant role in the tidal variation of salinity. In the spring tide regime, the tidal oscillatory salt transport is mainly due to oscillatory shear dispersion. In addition, the transient lateral circulation near large channel curvature causes the transverse tilt of the halocline. This mechanism has little effect on the cross-sectionally integrated tidal oscillatory salt transport, but it results in an apparent left–right cross-channel asymmetry of tidal oscillatory salt transport. With the isohaline framework, tidal oscillatory salt transport can be regarded as a part of the net estuarine salt transport, and the Lagrangian advective mechanism and dispersive mechanism can be distinguished.
    Description: Tao Wang was supported by the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research (Grant SKLEC-KF201509) and Chinese Scholarship Council. Geyer was supported by by NSF Grant OCE 0926427. Wensheng Jiang was supported by NSFC-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers (Grant U1406401).
    Description: 2016-05-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Estuaries ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Dispersion ; Shear structure/flows ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Diapycnal mixing ; Models and modeling ; Regional models
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 109 (2004): F02004, doi:10.1029/2003JF000096.
    Description: A 9 month time series of tripod-mounted optical and acoustic measurements of sediment concentration and bed elevation was used to examine depositional processes in relationship to hydrodynamic variables in the Hudson River estuary. A series of cores was also taken directly under and adjacent to the acoustic measurements to examine the relation between the depositional processes and the resulting fine-scale stratigraphy. The measurements reveal that deposition occurs as a result of sediment flux convergence behind a salinity front and that the accumulation rates are sufficient to deposit up to 25 cm of new high-porosity sediment in a single ebb-tidal phase. Subsequent dewatering and erosion reduces the thickness of the initial deposit to several centimeters. These depositional events were only observed on spring tides. Ten depositional events during two spring tidal cycles produced a seasonal deposit of 18 cm, consistent with estimates of seasonal deposition from cores. A proxy for near-bed suspended grain size variations was estimated from the combined acoustic and optical measurements, implying that the erosional processes resuspend only the finer-grained sediments, thus leaving behind silt and very fine grained sand beds. The thickness of the deposited homogenous clayey silt beds, and the vertical separation between beds interlaminated with silt and very fine sand, are roughly consistent with the acoustic measurements of changes in bed elevations during deposition and erosion. The variability in individual bed thickness is the result of variations of processes over an individual tidal cycle and is not a product of variations over the spring neap fortnightly timescale.
    Description: The authors would like to acknowledge the Hudson River Foundation, who provided funding for this work under grant 009/00A.
    Keywords: Sediment transport ; Estuarine processes ; Fluid mud
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 1769-1783, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0193.1.
    Description: High-resolution observations of velocity, salinity, and turbulence quantities were collected in a salt wedge estuary to quantify the efficiency of stratified mixing in a high-energy environment. During the ebb tide, a midwater column layer of strong shear and stratification developed, exhibiting near-critical gradient Richardson numbers and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rates greater than 10−4 m2 s−3, based on inertial subrange spectra. Collocated estimates of scalar variance dissipation from microconductivity sensors were used to estimate buoyancy flux and the flux Richardson number Rif. The majority of the samples were outside the boundary layer, based on the ratio of Ozmidov and boundary length scales, and had a mean Rif = 0.23 ± 0.01 (dissipation flux coefficient Γ = 0.30 ± 0.02) and a median gradient Richardson number Rig = 0.25. The boundary-influenced subset of the data had decreased efficiency, with Rif = 0.17 ± 0.02 (Γ = 0.20 ± 0.03) and median Rig = 0.16. The relationship between Rif and Rig was consistent with a turbulent Prandtl number of 1. Acoustic backscatter imagery revealed coherent braids in the mixing layer during the early ebb and a transition to more homogeneous turbulence in the midebb. A temporal trend in efficiency was also visible, with higher efficiency in the early ebb and lower efficiency in the late ebb when the bottom boundary layer had greater influence on the flow. These findings show that mixing efficiency of turbulence in a continuously forced, energetic, free shear layer can be significantly greater than the broadly cited upper bound from Osborn of 0.15–0.17.
    Description: Holleman was supported by the Devonshire Scholars program. The field study and the coauthors’ contributions were supported by NSF Grant OCE 0926427.
    Description: 2016-11-24
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Mixing ; Shear structure/flows ; Turbulence ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Ship observations
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  • 9
    Publication Date: 2022-10-20
    Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(7), (2019): 4784-4802, doi: 10.1029/2019JC015006.
    Description: Modifications for navigation since the late 1800s have increased channel depth (H) in the lower Hudson River estuary by 10–30%, and at the mouth the depth has more than doubled. Observations along the lower estuary show that both salinity and stratification have increased over the past century. Model results comparing predredging bathymetry from the 1860s with modern conditions indicate an increase in the salinity intrusion of about 30%, which is roughly consistent with the H5/3 scaling expected from theory for salt flux dominated by steady exchange. While modifications including a recent deepening project have been concentrated near the mouth, the changes increase salinity and threaten drinking water supplies more than 100 km landward. The deepening has not changed the responses to river discharge (Qr) of the salinity intrusion (~Qr−1/3) or mean stratification (Qr2/3). Surprisingly, the increase in salinity intrusion with channel deepening results in almost no change in the estuarine circulation. This contrasts sharply with local scaling based on local dynamics of an H2 dependence, but it is consistent with a steady state salt balance that allows scaling of the estuarine circulation based on external forcing factors and is independent of depth. In contrast, the observed and modeled increases in stratification are opposite of expectations from the steady state balance, which could be due to reduction in mixing with loss of shallow subtidal regions. Overall, the mean shift in estuarine parameter space due to channel deepening has been modest compared with the monthly‐to‐seasonal variability due to tides and river discharge.
    Description: Funding was provided by NSF Coastal SEES (OCE 1325136). Data supporting this study are posted to Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2551285) or are available by contacting the author.
    Description: 2019-12-07
    Keywords: Estuarine circulation ; Salinity intrusion ; Stratification ; Dredging ; Hudson River
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  • 10
    Publication Date: 2022-10-20
    Description: © The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Geyer, W. R., Ralston, D. K., & Chen, J. Mechanisms of exchange flow in an estuary with a narrow, deep channel and wide, shallow shoals. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125(12), (2020): e2020JC016092, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JC016092.
    Description: Delaware Bay is a large estuary with a deep, relatively narrow channel and wide, shallow banks, providing a clear example of a “channel‐shoal” estuary. This numerical modeling study addresses the exchange flow in this channel‐shoal estuary, specifically to examine how the lateral geometry affects the strength and mechanisms of exchange flow. We find that the exchange flow is exclusively confined to the channel region during spring tides, when stratification is weak, and it broadens laterally over the shoals during the more stratified neap tides but still occupies a small fraction of the total width of the estuary. Exchange flow is relatively weak during spring tides, resulting from oscillatory shear dispersion in the channel augmented by weak Eulerian exchange flow. During neap tides, stratification and shear increase markedly, resulting in a strong Eulerian residual shear flow driven mainly by the along‐estuary density gradient, with a net exchange flow roughly 5 times that of the spring tide. During both spring and neap tides, lateral salinity gradients generated by differential advection at the edge of the channel drive a tidally oscillating cross‐channel flow, which strongly influences the stratification, along‐estuary salt balance, and momentum balance. The lateral flow also causes the phase variation in salinity that results in oscillatory shear dispersion and is an advective momentum source contributing to the residual circulation. Whereas the shoals make a negligible direct contribution to the exchange flow, they have an indirect influence due to the salinity gradients between the channel and the shoal.
    Description: The ideas in this paper were influenced by discussions with Robert Chant. Funding was provided by National Science Foundation grants OCE‐1325136, OCE‐1634490, and OCE‐1736539.
    Description: 2021-04-29
    Keywords: Estuarine circulation ; Tidal dispersion ; Lateral circulation
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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