Turbulent mixing in a far‐field plume during the transition to upwelling conditions : microstructure observations from an AUV

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2018-09-23Author
Fisher, Alexander W.
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Nidzieko, Nicholas J.
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Scully, Malcolm E.
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Chant, Robert J.
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Hunter, Elias J.
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Mazzini, Piero L. F.
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https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10791As published
https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078543DOI
10.1029/2018GL078543Abstract
A REMUS 600 autonomous underwater vehicle was used to measure turbulent mixing within the far‐field Chesapeake Bay plume during the transition to upwelling. Prior to the onset of upwelling, the plume was mixed by a combination of energetic downwelling winds and bottom‐generated shear resulting in a two‐layer plume structure. Estimates of turbulent dissipation and buoyancy flux from a nose‐mounted microstructure system indicate that scalar exchange within the plume was patchy and transient, with direct wind mixing constrained to the near surface by stratification within the plume. Changing wind and tide conditions contributed to temporal variability. Following the separation of the upper plume from the coast, alongshore shear became a significant driver of mixing on the shoreward edge of the plume.
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Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 45 (2018): 9765-9773, doi:10.1029/2018GL078543.
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Geophysical Research Letters 45 (2018): 9765-9773Related items
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