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Sea level

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Full-Text Articles in Oceanography

Ocean Warming And Freshening In The Northern Gulf Of Alaska, Thomas C. Royer, Chester E. Grosch Jan 2006

Ocean Warming And Freshening In The Northern Gulf Of Alaska, Thomas C. Royer, Chester E. Grosch

CCPO Publications

Water column temperatures on the shelf in the northern Gulf of Alaska have increased more than 0.8 degrees C and vertical density stratification has increased since 1970 near Seward, Alaska throughout the 250 m depth. This high latitude marine system has low water temperatures, high rates of precipitation, glacial melting, high wind speeds and high rates of biological productivity. A more than 300 km alongshore shift ( locally westward) of isotherms is suggested. The observations are consistent with a conceptual ocean-atmosphere circulation model that employs coastal freshwater discharge, glacial ablation and wind forcing. Positive regional feedback mechanisms accelerate the discharge …

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Sea Level Slopes And Volume Fluxes Produced By Atmosphere Forcing In Chesapeake Bay, David Salas Monreal Oct 2002

Sea Level Slopes And Volume Fluxes Produced By Atmosphere Forcing In Chesapeake Bay, David Salas Monreal

OES Theses and Dissertations

Year long time series at eight stations in the Chesapeake Bay and inner shelf were used to determine the relative influence of wind, barometric pressure and thermosteric effects on subtidal sea level variability and slopes. Special emphasis was placed on the lower Chesapeake Bay, where inverse barometric effects accounted for up to 33% of the subtidal sea level variations and thermosteric effects accounted for less than 1 % of the variations. The greatest thermosteric influence was noted at the southernmost, saltier and shallower location (Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel). Wind forcing accounted for most of this station's variability, making up more …

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Morphostatic Long-Term Hypsometric Analysis Of Coastal Bay Environments: Hog Island Bay, Virginia, Kathleen Marie Overman Apr 2001

Morphostatic Long-Term Hypsometric Analysis Of Coastal Bay Environments: Hog Island Bay, Virginia, Kathleen Marie Overman

OES Theses and Dissertations

Sea level has been rising at a variable rate since the end of the last glaciation approximately 18,000 years ago. As the transgressing sea inundates the shore areas a series of landform state changes occur in coastal regions. One such change of state in a coastal paleo-river channel is from an estuary into a coastal lagoon. At large temporal intervals (thousands of years) the hypsometry of a coastal lagoon varies as a result of sea level rise due to these changes of state. Using a morphostatic technique, the time period in which an estuary transforms into a coastal lagoon can …

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Can Long-Term Variability In The Gulf Stream Transport Be Inferred From Sea Level?, Tal Ezer Jan 2001

Can Long-Term Variability In The Gulf Stream Transport Be Inferred From Sea Level?, Tal Ezer

CCPO Publications

Recent studies by Sturges and collaborators suggest a simple, but powerful, technique to estimate climatic changes in the transport of the Gulf Stream from the difference between the oceanic sea level calculated with a simple wind-driven Rossby wave model and the observed coastal sea level. The hypothesis behind this technique is tested, using 40 years of data (1950 to 1989) obtained from a three-dimensional Atlantic Ocean model forced by observed surface data. The analysis shows that variations in sea level difference between the ocean and the coast are indeed coherent with variations of the Gulf Stream transport for periods shorter …

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Comparison Of Statistical And Model-Based Hindcasts Of Subtidal Water Levels In Chesapeake Bay, Kathryn Thompson Bosley, Kurt W. Hess Jan 2001

Comparison Of Statistical And Model-Based Hindcasts Of Subtidal Water Levels In Chesapeake Bay, Kathryn Thompson Bosley, Kurt W. Hess

CCPO Publications

Subtidal water levels in Chesapeake Bay, which can have amplitudes as large as 1 m at Baltimore, are an important component of total water levels. The most importance forcing mechanisms for these variations are surface winds over the Bay and coastal subtidal water levels. Two methods for hindcasting subtidal water levels in the Bay were developed: statistical prediction (based on multiple linear regression) and a barotropic numerical circulation model-based prediction. The hindcast water levels were compared with the observed values at three key locations (Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (CBBT) in the lower bay near the mouth, Solomons Island at midbay, …

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Estimate Of Bottom And Surface Stress During A Spring-Neap Tide Cycle By Dynamical Assimilation Of Tide Gauge Observatons In The Chesapeake Bay, Y. H. Spitz, J. M. Klinck Jun 1998

Estimate Of Bottom And Surface Stress During A Spring-Neap Tide Cycle By Dynamical Assimilation Of Tide Gauge Observatons In The Chesapeake Bay, Y. H. Spitz, J. M. Klinck

CCPO Publications

Dynamical assimilation of surface elevation from tide gauges is investigated to estimate the bottom drag coefficient and surface stress as a first step in improving modeled tidal and wind-driven circulation in the Chesapeake Bay. A two-dimensional shallow water model and an adjoint variational method with a limited memory quasi-Newton optimization algorithm are used to achieve this goal. Assimilation of tide gauge observations from 10 permanent stations in the Bay and use of a two-dimensional model adequately estimate the bottom drag coefficient, wind stress, and surface elevation at the Bay mouth. Subsequent use of these estimates in the circulation model considerably …

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Wind-Driven Upwelling In The Vicinity Of Cape Finisterre, Spain, Charles R. Mcclain, Shenn-Yu Chao, Larry P. Atkinson, Jack O. Blanton, Frederico De Castillejo Jan 1986

Wind-Driven Upwelling In The Vicinity Of Cape Finisterre, Spain, Charles R. Mcclain, Shenn-Yu Chao, Larry P. Atkinson, Jack O. Blanton, Frederico De Castillejo

CCPO Publications

Observations and numerical simulations of upwelling along the Galician coast of Spain during April 1982 are presented. In situ measurements include shipboard determinations of hydrographic and biological parameters from a grid of stations covering the continental shelf from Cape Finisterre to Ria de Vigo, sea level data from Vigo and La Coruña, and wind stress estimates derived from the ship winds and from surface pressure charts. Sea surface temperature information and pigment concentration information have been obtained from a sequence of satellite images from the NOAA 7 advanced very high resolution radiometer and the Nimbus 7 coastal zone color scanner, …

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Low-Frequency Current And Temperature Variability From Gulf Stream Frontal Eddies And Atmospheric Forcing Along The Southeast U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, Thomas N. Lee, Larry P. Atkinson Jan 1983

Low-Frequency Current And Temperature Variability From Gulf Stream Frontal Eddies And Atmospheric Forcing Along The Southeast U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, Thomas N. Lee, Larry P. Atkinson

CCPO Publications

Low‐frequency current and temperature time series from the outer shelf between Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Cape Romain, South Carolina, are compared with shipboard hydrographic data, satellite VHRR, coastal and buoy winds, and coastal sea level during the period from February to June 1980. Low‐frequency current and temperature variability along the shelf break was primarily produced by cyclonic, cold core Gulf Stream frontal eddies. These disturbances traveled to the north at speeds of 50 to 70 cm s−1 with periods of 5 to 9 days throughout the experiment and produced cold cyclonic perturbations of the northward mean flow and temperature …

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