ABSTRACT
A river-forced estuarine plume is studied three-dimensionally by using the Navier-Stokes and buoyancy-conservation equations with the hydrostatic relation. The study extends the earlier paper by authors to include the effects of the tidal flow and the earth’s rotation. In case of a great flood, the buoyancy forcing and the earth’s rotation are the major force to lead a strong geostrophic along-front jet. It propagates at significantly high speed to the right along the coast in the northern hemisphere. However, once the river plume is dispersed due to the advection effects by the tidal flow, a buoyancy-driven current becomes weakened and the spreading of river plume is dominated by tidally-interacting. Comparison with satellite and field data is given. It is also found that Osaka Bay is an estuary under the control of temporal and spatial variability of density fields.
