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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L14606, doi:10.1029/2005GL022942, 2005

Mississippi River water in the Florida Straits and in the Gulf Stream off Georgia in summer 2004

Chuanmin Hu

College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA


James R. Nelson

Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Savannah, Georgia, USA


Elizabeth Johns

NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Miami, Florida, USA


Zhiqiang Chen

College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA


Robert H. Weisberg

College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA


Frank E. Müller-Karger

College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA


Abstract

A coherent plume from the Mississippi River was detected in MODIS imagery in July–October 2004 extending from the eastern Gulf of Mexico into the Florida Straits (FS), and reaching the Gulf Stream (GS) off Georgia. The plume was sampled from ships in the FS and the GS. In early August, the plume was about 10–20 km wide in the western FS and about 50 km wide off Georgia. The FS ship survey (16–26 August) documented a 50 km, 10–20 m deep band with anomalies in surface salinity (−0.8), temperature (0.5°C), and surface chlorophyll concentration (2×) relative to FS waters outside the plume. Nutrient concentrations were only slightly higher in the FS plume and there was no apparent increase in colored dissolved organic matter. We estimate that the plume carried some 23% (∼2778 m3 s−1) of the Mississippi River discharge between July and September 2004 into the GS.

Received 17 March 2005; accepted 15 June 2005; published 19 July 2005.

Index Terms: 1640 Global Change: Remote sensing (1855); 4894 Oceanography: Biological and Chemical: Instruments, sensors, and techniques.

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Citation: Hu, C., J. R. Nelson, E. Johns, Z. Chen, R. H. Weisberg, and F. E. Müller-Karger (2005), Mississippi River water in the Florida Straits and in the Gulf Stream off Georgia in summer 2004, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L14606, doi:10.1029/2005GL022942.