Relationships between Inner-Shelf Surface Currents and Large-Scale Characteristic Flow Patterns in the Santa Barbara Channel

The primary goals of the proposed research are:

• Observe the inner-shelf flow field along the northern SBC coast with drifters
• Determine the accuracy (and thus usefulness) of the SBC-SMB CCS drifters that sampled the inner-shelf
• Identify characteristic patterns of inner-shelf circulation with the available drifter data
• Relate the inner-shelf flow patterns to the large-scale (Winant et al. 2003) patterns
• Quantify coherence in horizontal diffusion over the northern SBC inner-shelf
• Identify forcing mechanisms for the inner-shelf

Achieving these goals will complete the understanding of the overall circulation within the SBC. Results will lead to a simple model that can be used to forecast circulation not just within the central basin and outer-shelf, but over the entire SBC all the way to the surf zone.

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