Buoyancy-driven flow on the Canadian and Alaskan shelf. The left diagram shows the location. The upper right diagram shows salinity on the Kodiak Island section. Note the downward slope of the isohalines towards the coast in the channel and on the offshore side of the island, indicating westward flow on both sides of the island.

The lower diagram compares river run-off integrated over the Alaskan Pacific coastline (black line) with volume transport of the upper 100 m of the water column across the Seward section (red squares) for 1974 - 1979. Note that the transport of the buoyancy-driven flow follows the variations in river run-off closely but is larger than the river run-off by a factor of 25.

Kodiak Island section adapted from Royer (1982). Map and Seward section adapted from Schumacher and Reed (1986).

© 2000 M. Tomczak

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