Monitoring River Plume Transport and Mesoscale Circulation in Green Bay, Lake Michigan, Through Satellite Remote Sensing

Abstract

This study investigates the transport and fate of the Fox River plume and the general circulation patterns within Lake Michigan's Green Bay utilizing satellite remote sensing imagery (Landsat TM and NOAA AVHRR). The calibrated satellite water color and thermal imagery shows the extreme lower portion of the bay as a distinct water mass (due to the influx of the Fox River) with a steep gradient in water transparency and surface temperature within the first 10 km from the river mouth. Fox River water and its heavy load of suspended and adsorbed material is advectively transported up along the bay's eastern shore in the form of a plume. Thus significant mixing of Fox River water is not restricted to the extreme lower portion of the bay but also is occurring in the middle portions of the bay. Similar water transparency but a distinct difference in thermal structure at the frontal zone between the Green Bay and Lake Michigan water masses indicates materials entering from the Fox River are largely retained within the bay rather than transported to the open waters of Lake Michigan.