A study on the vertical profile of the wind-driven current affected by long shoreline

Abstract

The west Florida continental shelf has referred as broad and gently sloping topography. In this region, the seasonal wind forcing is considered to influence on the waters over the shelf. It is believed that most of the ocean's biological primary productivity takes place in continental-shelf waters, so that the shelf velocity field and mixing can play an important role to this productivity. In this study, wind-driven current profile at west Florida shelf is analyzed by using a steady, linear, unstratified and two-dimensional model. Prior to introducing to the Florida shelf topography, two different types of the eddy viscosity profiles are examined. They are a constant (Ekman, 1905) and a bilinear profile (Madsen, 1977). Bilinear model results are compared with situ observed data at Northern California shelf to give a good agreement. Found that the bilinear model is safe to be introduced to the shelf region, wind-driven current on the Florida shelf is computed. Simple cross-shelf circulation patterns at the west Florida shelf due to the seasonal wind forcing are revealed.