A Subtidal Model of Temperature for a Well-Mixed Narrow Estuary: the Guadalquivir River Estuary (SW Spain)

Abstract

This paper analyzes thermal energy transport in the narrow and tidally energetic Guadalquivir River Estuary (SW Spain). Measurements from a comprehensive monitoring campaign (2008–2011) reveal the forcing factors of the temperature field and its spatio-temporal variability. The along-channel thermal energy gradient reaches magnitudes of ∼375 J/m4 near the mouth during the summer and winter. The water temperature is primarily controlled by shortwave radiation, latent heat transfer through the free surface, and tidal advection, whereas it depends less on freshwater discharge and longitudinal dispersion. The tidally averaged effective longitudinal thermal dispersion coefficient was evaluated at several stretches for each tidal cycle. The mean values of the coefficient tend to increase landward and are on the order of ∼103, larger than (but of the same order of magnitude as) the salinity coefficient values. Based on these analyses, a deterministic operational model for thermal energy transport was developed. The model solves the tidally and cross-sectionally averaged advection–dispersion equation for the thermal energy balance and obtains accurate fits of the subtidal temperature field at any location within the estuary. The modeled water temperatures agreed well with the observations at all the stations (coefficients of determination, R 2 greater than 0.98), even after the seasonal oscillation in radiation was removed (R 2 > 0.77).