FY 1990

The annual mean transport in Puget Sound

Cokelet, E.D., R.J. Stewart, and C.C. Ebbesmeyer

NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL PMEL-92, NTIS: PB90-265919, 59 pp (1990)

Puget Sound is modeled as a branched system of two-layered advective reaches separated by mixing zones. Fresh water and salt provide convenient tracers to calculate the annual mean layer transports. The technique utilizes historical records (1951–1956) of runoff and salinity which are analyzed with the aid of modern (principally 1970's) current meter records to provide the appropriate mass conserving landward- and seaward-flowing layer salinities for each reach. This is the first time that the long-term transports have been estimated simultaneously for the entire Strait of Juan de Fuca/Puget Sound system. With few exceptions the inferred transports agree well with estimates derived from scattered, shorter duration current observations. Uncertainties in the transports are estimated from uncertainties in the runoff, velocity profiles and salinities. The results provide the basis for future computations of refluxing and the steady state tracer concentrations and ages in the Sound.