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Novel, Repeated Surveys Reveal New Insights on Sediment Flux Through a Narrow Strait, Bohai, China
Author(s) -
Wu Xiao,
Wu Hui,
Wang Houjie,
Bi Naishuang,
Duan Haiqin,
Wang Chenghao,
Bian Changwei,
Xu Jingping
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: oceans
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9291
pISSN - 2169-9275
DOI - 10.1029/2019jc015293
Subject(s) - oceanography , geology , sediment , sediment transport , baroclinity , monsoon , stratification (seeds) , barotropic fluid , environmental science , climatology , geomorphology , seed dormancy , botany , germination , dormancy , biology
Straits are both a choke point and passage through which material and energy are exchanged between two adjoining water bodies. Understanding the mechanisms that drive these exchanges therefore is vital to quantifying the water and sediment budgets in regional and global oceans. Here we present a study in which a novel, phase‐averaging method was employed to better estimate the net‐suspended sediment fluxes through the entire Bohai Strait, the only passage for the massive Yellow River‐delivered sediment to leave the enclosed Bohai Sea for the open Yellow Sea. In winter, the transport through the strait was nearly barotropic in waters well mixed by the energetic winter monsoons. The transport became primarily baroclinic (opposite directions between upper and lower layers) in spring due to stratification, especially in the southern part of the strait. Intermittent but frequent southerly winds in northerly dominated winters were responsible for a net westward sediment transport into the Bohai Sea, a finding contrary to a status quo view. Hence, previous studies in which these intermittent southerly wind busts were not included are believed to have overestimated the sediments export from the Bohai Sea.