Movie:Wax Lake Salinity during strong coldfront

Information Page: Wax Lake Salinity during strong coldfront

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Salinity in Wax lake delta during a strong coldfront

Key Attributes

Domain:	coastal
Keywords:	salinity intrusion, cold front, delta
Model name:	Delft3D
Name:	Fei, Xing
Where:	Wax lake delta, LA
When:	Dec 8-12th, 2008

Short Description

Grade level: High (9-12), Under graduate (13-16), Graduate / Professional

Statement: Salinity in Wax lake delta during teh passage of a strong winter cold front

Abstract: This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of the pasage of a strong cold front on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km. The movie shows salinity before, during and after the strongest cold front of 2008. Cold fronts pass every 4-5 days during the winter. Many of the simulations for the Wax Lake in the repository are done for hurricanes, but these particular experiments explore the effects of a cold front. They may be smaller magnitude events, but they happen many times per winter season.

Water in the Wax lake delta is relatively fresh, during the entire period there is continuous river discharge being fed into the delta system. The river discharge is more important during low tide and brackish water progrades into the delta during high tides under normal conditions. This is the pulsing of the system you can see in the beginning of the simulation. This December 2008 cold front brings more saline water close to the delta (the red color). It is clear that only the outermost bars of the delta front do get affected much by the higher salinity water. It is unlikely that these short events have a major effect on the wetland vegetation, whereas the simulation of hurricane Ike (also in the repository)killed much of the freshwater/brackish water tolerant species.

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