Low-salinity plume in the changjiang and adjacent coastal regions: A model-data comparison

A three-dimensional (3-D) unstructured-grid, free-surface, primitive equation, Finite-Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) was applied to simulate the temporal and spatial structures of the Changjiang plume and examine the process of tidal mixing via river discharge. FVCOM is robust to reproduce the vertical and horizontal variations of the water salinity within the plume area and frontal zone that were observed in the 2005 summertime field survey. The process-oriented studies clearly show that the Changjiang plume is characterized mainly by a two-layer dynamics system with significant influence from local complex bathymetry. A high-resolution model with capability of resolving irregular coastal geometry and rapidly change bottom topography is required to capture the reality of the Changjiang plume.