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
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/151180 |
| Date | 16 December 2013 |
| Creators | Zhang, Zhaoru |
| Contributors | Hetland, Robert D., Lin, Xiaopei, Chang, Ping, Stossel, Achim, Szunyogh, Istvan |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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