Wind effects on the lateral structure of density-driven circulation in Chesapeake Bay

Abstract

The response of the density-driven circulation in the Chesapeake Bay to wind forcing was studied with numerical experiments. A model of the bay with realistic bathymetry was first applied to produce the density-driven flow under average river discharge and tidal forcing. Subsequently, four spatially uniform wind fields (northeasterly, northwesterly, southwesterly, and southeasterly) were imposed to examine the resulting cross-estuary structure of salinity and flow fields. In general, northeasterly and northwesterly winds intensified the density-driven circulation in the upper and middle reaches of the bay, whereas southeasterly and southwesterly winds weakened it. The response was different in the lower bay, where downwind flow from the upper and middle reaches of the bay competed with onshore/offshore coastal flows. Wind remote effects were dominant, over local effects, on volume transports through the bay entrance. However, local effects were more influential in establishing the sea-level slopes that drove subtidal flows and salinity fields in most of the bay. The effect of vertical stratification on wind-induced flows was also investigated by switching it off. The absence of stratification allowed development of Ekman layers that reached depths of the same order as the water depth. Consequently, bathymetric effects became influential on the homogeneous flow structure causing the wind-induced flow inside the bay to show a marked transverse structure: downwind over the shallow areas and upwind in the channels. In the presence of stratification, Ekman layers became shallower and the wind-induced currents showed weaker transverse structure than those that developed in the absence of stratification. In essence, the wind-driven flows were horizontally sheared under weak stratification and vertically sheared under stratified conditions.