FY 1980
On baroclinic transport of the Alaskan Stream near Kodiak Island
Reed, R.K., R.D. Muench, and J.D. Schumacher
Deep-Sea Res., 27A(7), doi: 10.1016/0198-0149(80)90037-0, 509–523 (1980) |
Near Kodiak Island the Alaskan Stream, a southwestward-flowing boundary current, exhibits no significant alongshore variability in volume transport; hence the region is suitable for examination of temporal changes in flow. Seventeen CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth) sections occupied during 1975-79 were used to compute baroclinic transport by two methods: (1) referred to 1500 dbar or the deepest common level; and (2) adjusted to 1500 dbar by the method of Jacobsen and Jensen. The second method gave larger values and less variability than the first. The mean adjusted volume transport was 12 × 106 m3 s−1, and maximum and minimum values were 17 and 8 × 106 m3 s−1. Baroclinic transport computed from the CTD data showed no seasonal signal, even though windstress curl in the Gulf of Alaska increases by an order of magnitude from summer to winter. A combination of changes in location of the stream along the continental slope and failure to adjust the transport to 1500 dbar seems to have caused some of the previously inferred variability. It appears that the baroclinic flow does not consistently spin up or down seasonally because of insufficient response time at these high latitudes. |
