Journal
OCEAN DYNAMICS
Volume 61, Issue 5, Pages 623-637Publisher
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s10236-010-0371-6
Keywords
Tidal dispersion; Langrangian chaotic advection; Langrangian dispersion coefficients; Cobscook Bay
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Funding
- Maine Department of Environmental Protection [MOSAC06-02]
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Tidal circulation in Cobscook Bay, a macro tidal basin, is simulated using the three-dimensional, nonlinear, finite element ocean model, QUODDY_dry. Numerical particles are released from various transects in the bay at different tidal phases and tracked for several tidal cycles. Initially, nearby particles in the main tidal channel experience a great deal of spreading and straining, and after a few tidal cycles, they are separated in different parts of the bay. The fundamental mechanism for particle dispersion is the chaotic advection that arises from long tidal excursions passing through many residual eddies. A loosely correlated, inverse relationship between the two dimensionless parameters, nu (the ratio of the residual current to the tidal current) and lambda (the ratio of the tidal excursion to the main topographic scale), can be constructed for large values of nu. Several Lagrangian statistical measures are used to quantify and distinguish dispersion regimes in different parts of Cobscook Bay. It is found that the effective Lagrangian dispersion coefficient can be estimated using the product of the magnitude of residual currents and the tidal excursion.
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