Residual Currents Through the Dover Strait Measured by H.F. Radar

Abstract Residual (i.e. non-tidal) components of flow in the Dover Straits are determined from measurements recorded by the OSCR H.F. Radar system. The data are divided into 10 monthly sets, obtained from 5 months of dual radar deployments on the English side of the Straits and a corresponding 5 months from the French side. For each of these sets the tidal component was removed by subtracting constituents derived from separate (monthly) harmonic analyses. In each deployment, surface currents were measured at 700 locations at 20-min intervals, providing spatial resolution on a grid as fine as 660 m. This fine spatial resolution reveals distinct patterns of monthly-mean residual circulations never previously recognized. In particular, a residual gyre is shown to be a dominating feature along the French side, with currents exceeding 20 cm s -1 and a diameter of 20 km. The previous obscurity of this feature may be attributable to the large (> 1·5 m s -1 ) and strongly spatially variable tidal currents. In these conditions, tidal advection will rapidly smear any surface signature obtained from satellite observations. Likewise, fine resolution (grid spacings of an order of 1 km) is required to reproduce these gyre dynamics in numerical models. The time-varying residual currents were correlated with wind recordings. Significant correlations were obtained for an 'open-sea' response (as represented by Ekman theory), with the wind-driven surface current veering at angles of up to 45° to the right of the wind direction. This 'open-sea' response is modified close to the coast where the generation of surface gradients force the currents to align with the topography. Larger-scale residual motions were identified from modal analyses. The primary modes, on both sides, involved large-scale flows through the Straits partially correlated with local winds. However for winds aligned approximately north-south, the components of these flows on the English and French sides are in opposition. These modes also revealed large oscillatory motions with periods of between 20 and 40 h. Estimates of net residual flows through the Straits from the radar measurements confirm earlier calculations of the range of variability in this parameter. However the increasing complexity of the flow patterns revealed in this study emphasizes the difficulty in quantifying the long-term net flow.