Physical Description and Analysis of the Variability of Salinity and Oxygen in Apalachicola Bay Eric Mortenson
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 Physical Description and Analysis of the Variability of Salinity and Oxygen in Apalachicola Bay Eric Mortenson Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE VARIABILITY OF SALINITY AND OXYGEN IN APALACHICOLA BAY By ERIC MORTENSON A Thesis submitted to the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2013 Eric Mortenson defended this thesis on July 1, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were: Kevin Speer Professor Directing Thesis Eric Chicken University Representative William Dewar Committee Member Mark Bourassa Committee Member William Landing Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with the university requirements. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Kevin Speer and the members of my committee. This research was supported by funding from Deep-C, GCOOS, and NGI. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ListofFigures ....................................... vi Abstract........................................... x 1 SALINITY BUDGET OF APALACHICOLA BAY 1 1.1 Introduction and Background . 1 1.2 SalinityandOysterProductivity . 4 1.3 Data........................................ 6 1.3.1 Data Gaps and Fouling . 8 1.3.2 InstrumentAccuracy........................... 9 1.4 Physical Observations of Apalachicola Bay . 9 1.4.1 Hydrographic Sections Surrounding Bay . 9 1.4.2 Density Structure within Apalachicola Bay . 10 1.4.3 Property Profiles at Site A . 11 1.4.4 Currents.................................. 12 1.4.5 Three-YearTimeSeries ......................... 15 1.5 Long Term Variations in Salinity in Apalachicola Bay . 17 1.6 Episodic Variations in Salinity . 19 1.7 Construction of Salinity Model . 22 1.8 Calibration of the Model . 26 1.9 Results....................................... 29 1.10 Conclusions . 32 2 Mechanisms of Oxygen Variability in Apalachicola Bay 35 2.1 Introduction and Background . 35 2.2 Data........................................ 37 2.2.1 Data Gaps and Fouling . 37 2.2.2 Instrument Accuracy . 38 2.3 Property Profiles at Site A . 38 2.4 Long Term Variation in Oxygen . 40 2.5 Short Term Variation in Oxygen at Site A . 44 2.5.1 Variations Due to Biological Consumption and Respiration . 44 2.5.2 Variations Due to Tides . 46 2.5.3 Strong Wind Events and Dissolved Oxygen . 47 2.6 Conclusions.................................... 48 3 CONCLUSIONS 50 iv Bibliography ........................................ 53 Biographical Sketch . 55 v LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Map of Apalachicola Bay. FSU maintains instruments at Site A. Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve (ANERR) study sites are located at Dry Bar and Cat Point. Wind speed and direction are measured at C-tower by NOAA. Apalachicola River flow is measured at Sumatra by USGS. Inlets to the bay are also named. Hydrographic stations where vertical profiles were measured are numbered. The FSU Marine Lab served as launch station for trips to Site A to exchange instruments and to make measurements. 2 1.2 Annual (triangles) and 5-year (circles) averaged Apalachicola River flow as measured at Sumatra. Two multi-year droughts can be seen from 1999-2002 and also from 2007-2009 where average annual flow is less than 500 m3/s. 5 1.3 Release rates at Lake Lanier from 1980 to 2011 at Buford Dam (top) and water levelofthelake(bottom).............................. 6 1.4 Schematic showing the configuration of ADCP and associated water column binning........................................ 7 1.5 Salinity at Site A. The upper plot represents daily averaged values, and the lower plot is the same data after cleaning. 8 1.6 Salinity in ppt. Stations in this plot correspond to stations in the Gulf of Mexico surrounding Apalachicola Bay in Figure 1.1. 10 1.7 Salinity versus temperature for all profiles from the June 2010 Bellows cruise. Green dots represent the stations near Indian Pass, black dots are within the rest of Apalachicola Bay (stations 43-56), red dots are the stations outside Apalachicola Bay (stations 1-33), and blue dots are around St. Joseph Bay (stations 34-42). 11 1.8 Temperature (left) and salinity (right) with depth at Site A. The blue are in winter, red in summer, the green in spring, and black in fall. 12 1.9 Temperature vs. salinity at Site A. Symbols same as Figure 1.8. Density contours are spaced at 2 kg/m3 intervals. .................... 13 1.10 Sea level anomalies at Site A, Cat Point and Dry Bar over a one day cycle. 13 vi 1.11 Sea level anomalies at Site A, Cat Point and Dry Bar over 2 spring-neap tidal cycles. Colors are the same as in Figure 1.10 . 14 1.12 Daily averaged zonal winds (pluses and dashed lines) and near-surface zonal currents (dots and solid lines). Both have been normalized by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation. 14 1.13 End points for particles advected with currents measured near the surface at Site A for the four seasons. Circles are for summer (JJA), pluses for fall (SON), stars for winter (DJF), and triangles for spring (MAM). 15 1.14 Temperature at Site A, Cat Point and Dry Bar. 16 1.15 Salinity at Site A, Cat Point and Dry Bar. 17 1.16 River flow during the 3-year study period in the upper plot, and mean turbidity Apalachicola Bay in nepheletic turbidity units (NTU) in the lower plot. The turbidity is the mean of measurements made at Cat Point and Dry Bar. 18 1.17 Apalachicola River flow and mean of Apalachicola Bay salinity. 18 1.18 Upper level zonal currents measured at Site A (top). Westward (eastward) flow is negative (positive). Salinity at Dry Bar and Cat Point, which are west and east of the mouth of Apalachicola River, respectively. 19 1.19 Temperature, salinity and density at Site A, Dry Bar, and Cat Point . 20 1.20 TS over 6 day period at Site A, pluses, and Dry Bar, circles. The numbers in the circles represents days from 28 Feb. 2009. Density contours are spaced at 4 kg/m3 intervals. ................................. 21 1.21 Salinity variation at Site A during a high river flow event. The red dashed box referstothetimeperiodshowninFigure1.22. 22 1.22 Salinity, temperature, and tidal depth variation at Site A during a high river flow event. The time period is within the red dashed box in Figure 1.21. 23 1.23 Schematic diagram of the double box system used to describe Apalachicola Bay. 25 1.24 Model of salinity in Apalachicola Bay compared with observed salinity in red. Days are from the beginning of the study period (01 Nov. 2008). The upper plot represents the western side of the bay, with associated observations from Dry Bar. The lower plot represents the eastern side of the bay, compared with observations at Cat Point.The model was run with varying values for the 6 3 7 3 volume of Apalachicola Bay from VBay = 6 ∗ 10 m in green, 3 ∗ 10 m in black, and 108 m3 inblue.............................. 27 vii 1.25 Model of salinity in Apalachicola Bay (black) compared with observed salinity (red). The model was run with varying distributions of river input from 90% (10%) into the east (west) as one extreme, and 10% (90%) into the west (east) sideastheotherextremecase. .......................... 28 1.26 Model of salinity in Apalachicola Bay (black) compared with observed salinity (red). ........................................ 29 1.27 Differences between the modeled output of salinity in Apalachicola Bay and observedsalinityinthebay.. 30 1.28 Time integrated volume flux due to river flow, precipitation, and at each of the boundaries. Precipitation is separated into western and eastern compo- nents. The boundaries are St. George Sound (sgs), mid-bay (mb), and the combination of the western passes of Indian Pass and Sike’s Cut (etc). 31 1.29 Observed salinity in Apalachicola Bay in red, and modeled output of salinity in the bay, with 3 different scenarios for river flow, in black. The 3 different scenarios are actual measured river flow (middle), half the measured river flow (upper),andtwicetheriverflow(lower). 31 1.30 Histograms of salinity values from observations (top) and model results (bot- tom) on the eastern and western sides of Apalachicola Bay. 32 1.31 Histograms of salinity values from model on the eastern and western sides of Apalachicola Bay. Scenario 1 is with river model delivering half of the measured Apalachicola River input, 2 is the same as the lower panels of Figure 1.30, and 3 is with twice the measured amount. 33 2.1 Map of Apalachicola Bay. FSU maintains instruments at Site A. Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve (ANERR) study sites are located at Dry Bar and Cat Point. Wind speed and direction are measured at C-tower by NOAA. Apalachicola River flow is measured at Sumatra by USGS. Inlets to the bay are also named. The Florida State University Marine Lab (FSUML) served as launch station for trips to Site A to exchange instruments and to makemeasurements. ............................... 36 2.2 Temperature (on left) and salinity (on right) with depth at Site A. The blue stars are in winter, red circles in summer, the green triangles in spring, and blackplusesinfall.................................. 39 2.3 Dissolved oxygen in mg/L ((left) and % saturation (right) with depth at Site A. Symbols same as Figure 2.2. 39 2.4 Temperature vs. salinity at Site A. Symbols same as Figure 2.2. Density contours are spaced at 0.002 g/cm3........................ 41 2.5 Dissolved oxygen vs.