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Water mass transport (in mSv = 1000 m3/s) from the Pacific to Juan to Fuca Strait and the Salish Sea's inner basins in (a) the summer of 2017 and (b) the winters of 2016/17 and 2017/18 from Beutel and Allen (2024). The transparent "looping" arrow in both figures represents the inflow to the Sea that was recently strait outflow as opposed to coming from the shelf or offshore.
The Salish Sea is a semi-enclosed coastal sea between Vancouver Island and the coast of British Columbia and Washington State, which supports large populations and biodiversity.
In this project, we looked at the origins of water entering the Salish Sea, and its fate once there. To do this, we applied Lagrangian particle tracking with Ariane to the output of two numerical ocean models (SalishSeaCast and CIOPS-W, divided in our analysis at the "PRT" in the figures shown) allowing us to estimate ocean pathways and determine the origins of water entering the Salish Sea and reaching its inner basins.
Our results show that the circulation patterns entering the Salish Sea are complex and highly variable, with different flow regimes dominating at different times of the year, influencing the sources of water entering the Sea. The summer inflow had remarkably consistent properties and trajectories over five years of analysis, while the winter inflow was found to be more variable and important for interannual variability.
Beutel, B; Allen, S.E. (2024). Seasonal and interannual Salish Sea inflow origins using Lagrangian tracking. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. 129(6). https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JC020106
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