Comparison of the Salinity Structure of the Chesapeake Bay,the Delaware Bay and Long Island Sound Using a Linearly Tapered Advection-Dispersion Model |
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| Authors: | Peter Gay James O’Donnell |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut, 1080 Shennecossett Road, Groton, 06340, CT, USA |
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| Abstract: | Long records of monthly salinity observations along the axis of Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, and Long Island Sound are used
to test a simple advection–dispersion model of the salt distribution in linearly tapered estuaries developed in a previous
paper. We subdivide each estuary into three to five segments, each with linear taper allowing a distributed input of fresh
water, and evaluate the dispersion in each segment. While Delaware Bay has weak dispersion and a classical sigmoidal salinity
structure, Long Island Sound and Chesapeake Bay are more dispersive and have relatively small gradients in the central stretches.
Long Island Sound is distinguished by having a net volume and salt flux out of its low-salinity end resulting in a smaller
range of salinity and increasing axial gradients at its head rather than the usual asymptotic approach to zero salinity. Estimates
of residence times based on model transport coefficients show that Long Island Sound has the most rapid response to fresh-water
flux variations. It also has the largest amplitude cycle in river discharge fluctuation. In combination, these cause the large
seasonal variation in the salinity structure relative to interannual variability in Long Island Sound as compared with Chesapeake
Bay and Delaware Bay. |
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