PUBLICATIONS Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans RESEARCH ARTICLE On the dynamics of the Zanzibar Channel 10.1002/2015JC010879 J. Zavala-Garay1, J. Theiss2, M. Moulton3, C. Walsh4, R. van Woesik5, C. G. Mayorga-Adame6, Key Points: M. Garcıa-Reyes7, D. S. Mukaka8, K. Whilden9, and Y. W. Shaghude8 Seasonal dynamics of the Zanzibar Channel forced remotely and by local 1Ocean Modeling Group, Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers, New Jersey, USA, 2Theiss Research, La Jolla, wind California, USA, 3Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Tides converge and diverge in the 4 center of the channel and reduce the Hole, Massachusetts, USA, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 5 6 transport USA, Harris Center For Science and Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, USA, College of 7 5%, 3%, and 92% of kinetic energy in Ocean, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA, Farallon Institute for Advanced remotely, wind, and tidal-forced Ecosystem Research, Petaluma, California, USA, 8Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, dynamics Tanzania, 9Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA Correspondence to: J. Zavala-Garay, Abstract The Zanzibar Channel lies between the mainland of Tanzania and Zanzibar Island in the tropi-
[email protected] cal western Indian Ocean, is about 100 km long, 40 km wide, and 40 m deep, and is essential to local socioe- conomic activities. This paper presents a model of the seasonal and tidal dynamics of the Zanzibar Channel Citation: based on the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) and a comparison of the model and observations.