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The Connecticut River plume interacts with the strong tidal currents of the ambient receiving waters in eastern Long Island Sound. The plume formed during ambient flood tides is studied as an example of tidal river plumes entering into energetic ambient tidal environments in estuaries or continental shelves. Conservative passive freshwater tracers within a high-resolution nested hydrodynamic model are applied to determine how source waters from different parts of the tidal cycle contribute to plume composition and interact with bounding plume fronts. The connection to source waters can be cut off only under low-discharge conditions, when tides reverse surface flow through the mouth after max ambient flood. Upstream plume extent is limited because ambient tidal currents arrest the opposing plume propagation, as the tidal internal Froude number exceeds one. The downstream extent of the tidal plume always is within 20 km from the mouth, which is less than twice the ambient tidal excursion. Freshwaters in the river during the preceding ambient ebb are the oldest found in the new flood plume. Connectivity with source waters and plume fronts exhibits a strong upstream-to-downstream asymmetry. The arrested upstream front has high connectivity, as all freshwaters exiting the mouth immediately interact with this boundary. The downstream plume front has the lowest overall connectivity, as interaction is limited to the oldest waters since younger interior waters do not overtake this front. The offshore front and inshore boundary exhibit a downstream progression from younger to older waters and decreasing overall connectivity with source waters. Plume-averaged freshwater tracer concentrations and variances both exhibit an initial growth period followed by a longer decay period for the remainder of the tidal period. The plume-averaged tracer variance is increased by mouth inputs, decreased by entrainment, and destroyed by internal mixing. Peak entrainment velocities for younger waters are higher than values for older waters, indicating stronger entrainment closer to the mouth. Entrainment and mixing time scales (1–4 h at max ambient flood) are both shorter than half a tidal period, indicating entrainment and mixing are vigorous enough to rapidly diminish tracer variance within the plume.
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Endothermic and exothermic chemically reacting plumes
We develop a model for a turbulent plume in an unbounded ambient that takes into account a general exothermic or endothermic chemical reaction. These reactions can have an important effect on the plume dynamics since the entrainment rate, which scales with the vertical velocity, will be a function of the heat release or absorption. Specifically, we examine a second-order non-reversible reaction, where one species is present in the plume from a pure source and the other is in the environment. For uniform ambient density and species fields the reaction has an important effect on the deviation from pure plume behaviour as defined by the source parameter Γ. In the case of an exothermic reaction the density difference between the plume and the reference density increases and the plume is ‘lazy’, whereas for an endothermic reaction this difference decreases and the plume is more jet-like. Furthermore, for chemical and density-stratified environments, the reaction will have an important effect on the buoyancy flux because the entrainment rate will not necessarily decrease with distance from the source, as in traditional models. As a result, the maximum rise height of the plume for exothermic reactions may actually decrease with reaction rate if this occurs in a region of high ambient density. In addition, we investigate non-Boussinesq effects, which are important when the heat of reaction is large enough.
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- Award ID(s):
- 0404743
- PAR ID:
- 10300493
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics
- Volume:
- 612
- ISSN:
- 0022-1120
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 291 to 310
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022112008002917
