Seabed drifter movement in San Diego Bay and adjacent waters

Abstract

The seabed drifter has been used successfully to provide valuable information in many estuarine and open sea environments. It was therefore selected for use in the San Diego area. Five hundred drifters were released in San Diego Bay and adjacent ocean waters to delineate bottom flow patterns. Four significant bottom drift regimes are differentiated: off-coastal, main bay channel, open and semi-enclosed docking basins. Mean residual bottom drift ranged between 0·17km day −1 off the coast to essentially zero in the docking basins. Off-coast drifter results (31% recovery) showed a persistent northmoving bottom current with shallow near-coast drift distances between 4 and 25 km. This nearshore north moving bottom current appears to cause a net bottom water inflow into the main San Diego Bay channel (44% recovery). In the open bay a reverse trend was observed from the 16% of the drifters recovered. At the head of the estuary, evaporative densification is believed to occur, with the heavier water sinking and moving outward, towards the estuary mouth, resulting in an area of opposing bottom water currents. In this area San Diego Gas and Electric power plant takes in an average 150 million gallons of cooling water daily which, discharged as warm surface water, is suggested as the surface divergence mode required to reconcile the observed flow. With the three San Diego Bay electric power plants utilizing more than 5% of the maximum tidal prism for cooling purposes, this flow may play a major role in the overall bay circulation and requires quantitative investigation.