National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
United States Department of Commerce


 

FY 1983

Circulation and hydrography of Unimak Pass and the shelf waters north of the Alaska peninsula

Schumacher, J.D., and P.D. Moen

NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL PMEL-47, NTIS: PB83-257006, 75 pp (1983)


We present wind, current, bottom pressure, and hydrographic observations from Unimak Pass and the adjacent shelf. Mean flow was from the Gulf of Alaska into the Bering Sea and resulted from the Kenai Current. Shorter period fluctuations were bi-directional and coherent with divergence along the coast. Observations along the northern side of the Alaska Peninsula indicated Kenai Current water had an impact on the local salt content in the coastal domain, and together with freshwater discharge maintained a stronger horizontal density gradient in the vicinity of the 50-m isobath. Associated with this front was a moderate (1 to 6 cm/s) mean flow. Wind forcing, manifested both as coastal divergence and as a source of strong mixing, was evident at shorter periods. Results substantiated previous studies, but they also revealed subtle features including impact of freshwater discharge not associated with gaged rivers, importance of gaps in the mountains to the generation of pressure gradient winds, and the nature of processes which destroy and establish the inner front and the typically two-layered middle shelf domain structure.




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