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Colonial auks and eiders as potential indicators of oil pollution
Oceanographic Abstracts
305
VERMEER KEES, 1976. Colonial auks and eiders as potential indicators of oil pollution. Mar. Pollut. Bull., 7 (9): 165-167. Colonial auk (Alcid) populations can be used as indicators of the effects of oil pollution on the seabirds of Canada's coastal zones. Of approximately 11 million breeding colonial alcids in Canada and in adjacent West Greenland waters, 87% are murres. Common Eiders may serve as the best indicators of the effects of oil pollution in Canada's western Arctic where colonial alcids are scarce. VOLOSOV V. M., 1976. Nonlinear topographic Rossby waves. (In Russian; English abstract.) Okeanologiia, 16 (3): 389-396. A nonlinear theory of barotropic topographic Rossby waves of finite amplitude over a corrugated bottom of the ocean is developed in the traditional ~3-plane and "rigid lid" appIoximation as a generalization of the linear theory. A new nonlinear equation is derived for the principal component of the large-scale wave motion and an asymptotic algorithm is elaborated for finding higher approximations with respect to the small parameter-relative bottom height. A physical interpretation of the results of the theory is given. Some special cases and generalizations are discussed.
24:
WADDELL EVANS, 1976. Swash groundwater beach profile interactions. Spec. Pubis Soc. econ. Palaeont. Miner., Tulsa, 115-125.
Because features of an uninterrupted swash appear primarily dependent on only breaker height and beach slope, duration of an undisturbed swash can and often will exceed breaker period. When this situation occurs, collisions between successive swashes expend energy on the lower beach face thereby curtailing or inhibiting some uprushes. Magnitude of wave energy reflection and hence generation of leaky mode, nearshore standing appears in part to be conditional on the intensity of swash interaction. As a resuh, collisions between swashes can have a significant influence on nearshore and beach processes. Swash and standing waves cause corresponding oscillations of the beach water table in the vicinity of the beach face by transmission mass flux through the saturated portion of the beach. As a result of low pass filter characteristics of the beach matrix, groundwater movement induced by lower frequency standing waves is the more significant of these two discrete frequency forcing functions. It is possible for these water table fluctuations to periodically alter the upper beach face environment so that sequential deposition and erosion result. High frequency oscillations of beach elevation (on the order of 40 seconds or greater) have been measured on the upper and mid region of the beach face. These regular changes in sand level are produced by action of multiple swashes and appear to be the result of sequential deposition of material moved upslope as suspended load and subsequent erosion as this material moves downslope as bedload. WADHAMS PETER, 1976. Sea ice topography in the Beaufort Sea and its effect on oil containment. AIDJEXBull., 33: 1-52. Also as "Sea ice morphology in the Beaufort Sea," Beaufort Sea Pro/. tech. Rept, 36. The topography of the Beaufort Sea ice cover has been examined from airborne laser profiles obtained in September and October 1974 by the Atmospheric Environment Service, Environment Canada, and in April 1975 by the Canadian Maritime Command, Department of National Defense. Mean ridge heights and spacings were deduced for the elements of a grid covering much of the Beaufort Sea. In summer the mean ridge height increased linearly with the ridge frequency. For higher ridges the distributions of ridge heights in both seasons followed an identical empirical law of form P(h) = A exp ( - B h ) . This law was used together with ice drift information to predict extreme values or ridge height for different time intervals and spatial areas. Tentative predictions of extreme keel draft were made using reasonable factors for freeboard to draft conversion, and compared with depths at which scouring is found on the Beaufort Sea Shelf. A longitt~dinal profile of a shear ridge obtained in 1972 by an unmanned Arctic research submersible (UARS) of the University of Washington has been analyzed in an attempt to predict the minimum and maximum depths to be expected in a given keel linkage of known mean depth. On the basis of these and other studies of the Beaufort Sea Project, a discussion is given of the extent to which sea ice deformation features may govern the long-term spread of oil under ice. WADHAMS PETER, 1976. Oil and ice in the Beaufort Sea. PolarRec., 18 (114): 237-250. The Beaufort Sea Project represented a new departure in Canadian science in that it was the first major environmental project which industry and government carried out with joint funding and co-operation. It was also one of the first in which a genuine attempt was made to keep native people informed of the environmental issues in advance of decisions regarding industrial development. There is some suspicion that this task was pointless, however, since the Beaufort Sea Project was deliberately limited by its terms of reference to considerations of exploratory drilling only, whereas the concerns of northerners were naturally with the massive social dislocations that would accompany the development of a productive oilfield. Although the time scale of 18 months was too short for final conclusions to be drawn, especially in the biological fields, it is clear that in the unlikely event of a blowout the consequences might be very serious. The blowout may emit oil for an entire year, releasing up to 400,000 barrels. This quantity is large in itself, but its effects will be greatly exacerbated by three factors which act to spread the oil diffusively over a large and unpredictable area in the shear zone: (i) the patchiness of deposition, caused by
305
VERMEER KEES, 1976. Colonial auks and eiders as potential indicators of oil pollution. Mar. Pollut. Bull., 7 (9): 165-167. Colonial auk (Alcid) populations can be used as indicators of the effects of oil pollution on the seabirds of Canada's coastal zones. Of approximately 11 million breeding colonial alcids in Canada and in adjacent West Greenland waters, 87% are murres. Common Eiders may serve as the best indicators of the effects of oil pollution in Canada's western Arctic where colonial alcids are scarce. VOLOSOV V. M., 1976. Nonlinear topographic Rossby waves. (In Russian; English abstract.) Okeanologiia, 16 (3): 389-396. A nonlinear theory of barotropic topographic Rossby waves of finite amplitude over a corrugated bottom of the ocean is developed in the traditional ~3-plane and "rigid lid" appIoximation as a generalization of the linear theory. A new nonlinear equation is derived for the principal component of the large-scale wave motion and an asymptotic algorithm is elaborated for finding higher approximations with respect to the small parameter-relative bottom height. A physical interpretation of the results of the theory is given. Some special cases and generalizations are discussed.
24:
WADDELL EVANS, 1976. Swash groundwater beach profile interactions. Spec. Pubis Soc. econ. Palaeont. Miner., Tulsa, 115-125.
Because features of an uninterrupted swash appear primarily dependent on only breaker height and beach slope, duration of an undisturbed swash can and often will exceed breaker period. When this situation occurs, collisions between successive swashes expend energy on the lower beach face thereby curtailing or inhibiting some uprushes. Magnitude of wave energy reflection and hence generation of leaky mode, nearshore standing appears in part to be conditional on the intensity of swash interaction. As a resuh, collisions between swashes can have a significant influence on nearshore and beach processes. Swash and standing waves cause corresponding oscillations of the beach water table in the vicinity of the beach face by transmission mass flux through the saturated portion of the beach. As a result of low pass filter characteristics of the beach matrix, groundwater movement induced by lower frequency standing waves is the more significant of these two discrete frequency forcing functions. It is possible for these water table fluctuations to periodically alter the upper beach face environment so that sequential deposition and erosion result. High frequency oscillations of beach elevation (on the order of 40 seconds or greater) have been measured on the upper and mid region of the beach face. These regular changes in sand level are produced by action of multiple swashes and appear to be the result of sequential deposition of material moved upslope as suspended load and subsequent erosion as this material moves downslope as bedload. WADHAMS PETER, 1976. Sea ice topography in the Beaufort Sea and its effect on oil containment. AIDJEXBull., 33: 1-52. Also as "Sea ice morphology in the Beaufort Sea," Beaufort Sea Pro/. tech. Rept, 36. The topography of the Beaufort Sea ice cover has been examined from airborne laser profiles obtained in September and October 1974 by the Atmospheric Environment Service, Environment Canada, and in April 1975 by the Canadian Maritime Command, Department of National Defense. Mean ridge heights and spacings were deduced for the elements of a grid covering much of the Beaufort Sea. In summer the mean ridge height increased linearly with the ridge frequency. For higher ridges the distributions of ridge heights in both seasons followed an identical empirical law of form P(h) = A exp ( - B h ) . This law was used together with ice drift information to predict extreme values or ridge height for different time intervals and spatial areas. Tentative predictions of extreme keel draft were made using reasonable factors for freeboard to draft conversion, and compared with depths at which scouring is found on the Beaufort Sea Shelf. A longitt~dinal profile of a shear ridge obtained in 1972 by an unmanned Arctic research submersible (UARS) of the University of Washington has been analyzed in an attempt to predict the minimum and maximum depths to be expected in a given keel linkage of known mean depth. On the basis of these and other studies of the Beaufort Sea Project, a discussion is given of the extent to which sea ice deformation features may govern the long-term spread of oil under ice. WADHAMS PETER, 1976. Oil and ice in the Beaufort Sea. PolarRec., 18 (114): 237-250. The Beaufort Sea Project represented a new departure in Canadian science in that it was the first major environmental project which industry and government carried out with joint funding and co-operation. It was also one of the first in which a genuine attempt was made to keep native people informed of the environmental issues in advance of decisions regarding industrial development. There is some suspicion that this task was pointless, however, since the Beaufort Sea Project was deliberately limited by its terms of reference to considerations of exploratory drilling only, whereas the concerns of northerners were naturally with the massive social dislocations that would accompany the development of a productive oilfield. Although the time scale of 18 months was too short for final conclusions to be drawn, especially in the biological fields, it is clear that in the unlikely event of a blowout the consequences might be very serious. The blowout may emit oil for an entire year, releasing up to 400,000 barrels. This quantity is large in itself, but its effects will be greatly exacerbated by three factors which act to spread the oil diffusively over a large and unpredictable area in the shear zone: (i) the patchiness of deposition, caused by