Observed volume fluxes in the Bosphorus Strait

Pairs of moorings containing acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) were deployed at each end of the Bosphorus Strait as a part of the United States Naval Research Laboratory's "Exchange Processes in Ocean Straits (EPOS)" project. The moorings were deployed in September 2008 and remained in place for about half a year. For the first time, current velocity profiles were collected concurrently at both ends of the strait. They well resolved the two-layer exchange flow and were used to estimate volume flux time series. These estimates clearly indicated that there was a mean net volume flux of over 100 km(3)/yr directed from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara over this period. The upper-layer fluxes showed distinct temporal variability whereas the lower-layer fluxes varied less. Volume fluxes were maximized at over 1500 km(3)/yr in the upper layer and over 1100 km(3)/yr in the lower layer, with an upper-layer mean of about 400 km(3)/yr and a lower-layer mean of about 300 km(3)/yr. Fluxes in both layers were highly coherent with the bottom pressure difference between the southern and northern ends of Bosphorus Strait, and they can be fairly well predicted from this pressure difference. The fluxes in the upper layer were also influenced by atmospheric forcing, but generally less so than by the bottom pressure difference. Citation: Jarosz, E., W. J. Teague, J. W. Book, and S. Besiktepe (2011), Observed volume fluxes in the Bosphorus Strait, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L21608, doi:10.1029/2011GL049557.