A Tale of Two Estuaries: Columbia Bay, Alaska, and San Francisco Bay, California

Columbia Bay and San Francisco Bay are two estuaries that are opposites in almost every respect. Columbia Bay is a deep, high latitude fjord where dynamics are dominated by subglacial freshwater flows; San Francisco Bay is a shallow estuary dominated by tides and to a lesser extent by freshwater inflow. These different forcing mechanisms in conjunction with the dissimilar geometries, lead to different circulation patterns. These two particular estuaries provide examples of the wide range of circulation patterns found in estuaries. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.