Bathymetric map of the south part of Great Salt Lake, Utah, 2005

Abstract A Doppler lidar deployed to the center of the Great Salt Lake (GSL) basin during the Vertical Transport and Mixing (VTMX) field campaign in October 2000 found a diurnal cycle of the along-basin winds with northerly up-basin flow during the day and a southerly down-basin low-level jet at night. The emphasis of VTMX was on stable atmospheric processes in the cold-air pool that formed in the basin at night. During the night the jet was fully formed as it entered the GSL basin from the south. Thus, it was a feature of the complex string of basins draining toward the Great Salt Lake, which included at least the Utah Lake basin to the south. The timing of the evening reversal to down-basin flow was sensitive to the larger-scale north–south pressure gradient imposed on the basin complex. On nights when the pressure gradient was not too strong, local drainage flow (slope flows and canyon outflow) was well developed along the Wasatch Range to the east and coexisted with the basin jet. The coexistence of these two types of flow generated localized regions of convergence and divergence, in which regions of vertical motion and transport were focused. Mesoscale numerical simulations captured these features and indicated that updrafts on the order of 5 cm s−1 could persist in these localized convergence zones, contributing to vertical displacement of air masses within the basin cold pool.

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Calculation of area and volume for the south part of Great Salt Lake, Utah

Open-File Report ◽

10.3133/ofr20051327 ◽

2005 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Robert L. Baskin

Keyword(s):

Salt Lake ◽

Great Salt Lake ◽

The South ◽

Area And Volume

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Basin-Scale Internal Waves Within the South Arm of the Great Salt Lake

Volume 1: Symposia, Parts A and B ◽

10.1115/fedsm2008-55084 ◽

2008 ◽

Author(s):

Robert E. Spall

Keyword(s):

Wave Motion ◽

Stokes Equations ◽

Salt Lake ◽

Great Salt Lake ◽

Salt Lake City ◽

Navier Stokes ◽

Kelvin Wave ◽

The South ◽

Basin Scale ◽

Lake City

The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations were solved to predict the internal basin-scale wave motion in the south arm of the Great Salt Lake. Forcing of the wave motion was through surface stresses induced by a spatially uniform but temporally varying wind distribution. The brine distribution was initialized as an upper layer with salinity 120 ppt over a deep brine layer of salinity 240 ppt. The simulations were run for one month periods with wind data (from the Salt Lake City International Airport) for the months March, April, May, and June 2006. Results indicate the existence of a Kelvin wave propagating counter-clockwise about the perimeter of the basin with period 24 hours.

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