Encyclopedia of Science

[Don_]

[b]Does anyone know what the net water exchange between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico is? More outflow than in, or more inflow than out. And if so, by how much?
Thx,
Don[/b]

[CynthiaA]

[quote]Does anyone know what the net water exchange between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico is? More outflow than in, or more inflow than out. And if so, by how much? [/quote]

It would be difficult to determine the net water exchange between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Not a lot of research has been done in this area.

[I read that] The Atlantic actually renews the deep water of the Caribbean Sea. The Caribbean renews the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico over the sill in the Yucatan channel (from the Northwest).

At a depths between 1100 and 1900 feet, the deep return flow of water from the Gulf of Mexico (salinity 43.96 psu) flows back to the Yucatan channel back to Windward and Jungfern passages.

The Caribbean is above the returning deep renewal water. The transports into and from the Gulf is less than 1 SY.

Cynthia

[Fegos]

Not sure it would be all that hard, to get a rough idea. If one could lay hands on a topo, of the bottom, and calculate the surface area of the "weir" it created, then plug in the current speeds, you could get a pretty close look at the gallons per minute, or cubic feet per second or cubic mile per microsecond, or whatever ruler you wanted to measure it with. I think this'll get you ball park.
Otherwise you're going to have to start taking salinity readings at various depths. Calculate the friction between different salinity readings, as well as different temps, and start doing a buncha differential equations, that make my head hurt.
Hope this helps, some anyhoo.
Mike