Seasonal Variability of Tidal Currents in Tampa Bay, Florida

Abstract

AbstractAn analysis of tidal current variability is performed over seasonal scales for an 11-year record of estuarine currents at two locations in Tampa Bay, Florida. From 2002 to 2012, bimonthly harmonic analyses were performed on current observations collected near the entrance to Old Tampa Bay and at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. The resultant tidal constituents and nontidal residual were then correlated with other parameters to determine potential physical forcing. Comparison with local wind data suggests that the land-sea breeze cycle can have significant impact on diurnal tidal current flow. Periods of strong land-sea breeze are found to have up to a 30% increase in K1 amplitude compared with periods of weak land-sea breeze. Subtidal weather-scale wind forcing with periods from 2 to 7 days demonstrates a strong correlation with nontidal residual flow, likely resulting from both direct wind forcing as well as the modification of along-estuary water-level gradients. Additionally, the M2 constituent corr...