High salinity winter outflow from a mega inverse-estuary—the Great Australian Bight

Abstract

Conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) observations taken in the Great Australian Bight (GAB) during ORV Franklin cruise Fr 07/94 in July 1994 indicated the presence of a dense bottom layer at the head of the GAB, which flowed along the sea floor towards the shelf-break as a gravity current The north central region of the GAB was stratified with a maximum salinity difference of between 0.4 and 0.5. The outflow was confined to the shelf and was directed in a south-easterly direction with little evidence of cross-shelf transport. The flow exhibited a well-defined bottom interface evident from the head of the GAB to near the mouth of Spencer Gulf (SG), where the surface-bottom salinity difference was about 0.3. The mean thickness of the outflow was about 15 m. An estimate of the speed of the outflow at the discharge over the shelf-break was made using the zero entrainment assumption. This yielded a speed of <16 cm s −1, which remarkably was consistent with near bottom current meter measurements (16 cm s −1) on the continental shelf edge, reported south of the Eyre Peninsula. A mass budget analysis indicated that the outflow, which probably is partially maintained by the gravity current and partly by a wind-driven circulation would exist over the period, July–December, with a peak transport of about 10 6 m 3s −1 (1 Sverdrup) which is approximately twenty times that of the bottom outflow from the adjoining Spencer Gulf.