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Wind- and Buoyancy-modulated Along-shore Circulation over the Texas-Louisiana ShelfZhang, Zhaoru 16 December 2013 (has links)
Numerical experiments are used to study the wind- and buoyancy-modulated along-shore circulation over the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf inshore of 50-m water depth. Most attention is given to circulation in the non-summer flow regime. A major focus of this study is on a unique along-shore flow phenomenon – convergent along- shore flows, which is controlled jointly by wind forcing and buoyancy fluxes from the Mississippi-Atchafalaya river plume. The second problem addresses the forcing effect of buoyancy on the general along-shore circulation pattern over the shelf in non-summer.
The convergent along-shore flows are characterized by down-coast flow from the northern shelf encountering up-coast flow from the southern shelf. This phenomenon is explored for both weather band and seasonal timescales. For the weather band, investigations are focused on non-summer convergent events. The formation of convergent flows is primarily caused by along-coast variation in the along-shore component of wind forcing, which in turn is due to the curvature of the Texas-Louisiana coastline. In general, along-shore currents are well correlated with along-shore winds. However, the points of convergence of currents and winds are not co-located; but rather, points of convergence of currents typically occur down-coast of points of convergence of wind. This offset is mainly caused by buoyancy forcing that forces down-coast currents and drives the point of convergence of currents further down-coast. No specific temporal shift pattern is found for the weather-band convergence, whereas monthly
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