Marine Science Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-1996
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1029/96GL02184
Abstract
Velocity data from 28°N, 84°W on the west Florida continental shelf are presented. The data were sampled from October 1993 through January 1995 at 1 m intervals between 3 m and 42 m in a total water depth of 47 m. Their monthly means suggest an annual cycle hypothesized to be driven by a seasonally varying shelf-wide baroclinic structure. Motions at semi-diurnal, diurnal and synoptic time scales are seasonally modulated, both by wind forcing and stratification that decouples fluid motions from the damping effects of bottom friction. These motions are presented in the form of progressive vector plots. With 16 months of data, probability density and distribution functions for along-shore and across-shore particle displacements over specific time intervals are constructed. For daily intervals, particles are equally likely to travel approximately 5 km (depending upon confidence interval) in any direction. For monthly intervals, particles may travel a few hundred km, primarily along-shore.
Rights Information
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Geophysical Research Letters, v. 23, issue 17, p. 2247-2250
Copyright 1996 by the American Geophysical Union.
Scholar Commons Citation
Weisberg, Robert H.; Black, Bryan D.; and Yang, Huijun, "Seasonal Modulation of the West Florida Continental Shelf Circulation" (1996). Marine Science Faculty Publications. 387.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/387
