Idealized Two-Dimensional Modeling of a Coastal Buoyancy Front, or River Plume, under Downwelling-Favorable Wind Forcing with Application to the Alaska Coastal Current

Abstract The cross-shelf structure of a buoyancy-driven coastal current, such as produced by a river plume, is modeled in a two-dimensional cross-shelf slice as a “wide” geostrophically balanced buoyancy front. Downwelling-favorable wind stress applied to this front leads to advection in the surface and bottom boundary layers that causes the front to become steeper so that it eventually reaches a steep quasi-steady state. This final state is either convecting, stable and steady, or stable and oscillatory depending on D/δ* and by /f 2, where D is bottom depth, δ* is an Ekman depth, by is the cross-shelf buoyancy gradient, and f is the Coriolis parameter. Descriptions of the cross-shelf circulation patterns are given and a scaling is presented for the isopycnal slope. The results potentially apply to the Alaska Coastal Current, which experiences strong, persistent downwelling-favorable wind stress during winter, but also likely have application to river plumes subjected to downwelling-favorable wind stress.