Response to forcing: the governing equations and some basic solutions - Introduction to the Physical and Biological Oceanography of Shelf Seas - page 87

60ºN

1

2

10

North
Sea

5

Sellafield

2

10

5

UK

2 1

1

50ºN

10ºW 0º 10ºE

Figure 3.17 Observed distribution of 137 Cs (pCi l 1 ) around the UK in August 1979. The source
of the radioisotope is waste water from the Sellafield nuclear plant in NW England.
After Prandle, 1984 , courtesy of the Royal Society, London.

3 years. For the Irish Sea the transit time is 1-2 years, which corresponds to an

∼ ∼

0.5 cm s 1 . Such weak net flow, originally inferred by
Bowden ( 1950 ) and later confirmed by direct measurement (Brown and Gmitrowicz,
1995 ), is not consistent with the erroneous view that the Gulf Stream flows through
the Irish Sea to directly warm the west coast of the UK.

average northward flow of <

Summary

....................................................................................................................
In response to the forcing mechanisms, the shelf seas move in a way that is controlled
by the fundamental laws of fluid motion which arise from the principles of continuity
and Newton's laws of dynamics. The dynamics require that the equations be set up in
a way that allows for the rotation of the Earth and enables us to work in coordinates
which are fixed relative to the Earth. When this is done, an additional virtual force