The Dynamics of River Plumes: the Relationship between Inflow Conditions and Alongshore Transport

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

0118029 Monismith The PI hypothesizes that river plume conditions at the river mouth control the angle of impact at the stagnation point, which then controls the split of waters that flow into the downstream coastal current and the bulge associated with the outflow plume. Laboratory experiments, complemented by numerical modeling, is proposed. Questions to be answered include: Are river plumes inherently time dependent? How do river mouth parameters affect alongshore and cross-shore transport? Is the assumption of a geostrophic balance in the coastal current uniformly valid? The studies will define the structure of he plume, the stagnation point, and the coastal current, and describe the transport field within the coastal current. Five lab cases include a standard, low inflow angle, high Rossby number, high Froude number, and non-zero bottom slope situations. Reproducibility of the lab runs allows data from multiple runs (at least for the first 7-10 rotations) to be combined for analysis.