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5 - Estuarine secondary circulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

By
Robert J. Chant
Edited by
Arnoldo Valle-Levinson
Robert J. Chant
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
Arnoldo Valle-Levinson
Affiliation:
University of Florida
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Summary

Introduction

While the majority of theories developed to describe the dynamics of estuarine circulation are devoted to the study of along-channel flows at both tidal (Friedrichs and Aubrey, 1988) and subtidal frequencies (Pritchard, 1956; Hansen and Rattray, 1966; Geyer et al., 2000; MacCready, 2004), in recent years numerous studies have concentrated on secondary flows and their importance in the along-channel dynamics (Lerczak and Geyer, 2004) and along-channel dispersion (Smith, 1977, 1978; Geyer et al., 2008). While detailed theoretical work by Smith (1977) preceded these more recent studies by several decades, the recent modeling and observational studies discussed here have more clearly elucidated the complex interplay between lateral mixing, along-channel dynamics and dispersion. These studies have also emphasized the importance of the pioneering work by Ronald Smith (1977), who was awarded the BH Ketchum award in 1996 for this seminal work. Thus, in addition to the recent work described in detail in this chapter, the reader is encouraged to study the work of Smith (1977, 1978).

Secondary flows are defined by flow that is normal to the main along-channel flow. For natural flows the directionality of this may be defined by flows normal to channel orientation. This is often somewhat ambiguous, so in practice the “cross-channel direction” is usually defined by either principal component analysis or tidal ellipse analysis of current meter data. Typically, the strength of secondary flows is <10% of the strength of along-channel flows.

Type
Chapter
Information
Contemporary Issues in Estuarine Physics , pp. 100 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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