Assessment of circulation and inter-basin transport in the Salish Sea including Johnstone Strait and Discovery Islands pathways

•A FVCOM based model of Salish Sea including the straits around Vancouver Island.•Quantitative assessment of inter-basin exchange flows and transport at 30 transects.•Validation of the classic theory of Circulation in Embracing Sills for Puget Sound.•Influence of exchange through Johnstone Strait on Puget Sound region of Salish Sea.

The Salish Sea consisting of Puget Sound and Georgia Basin in U.S and Canadian waters has been the subject of several independent data collection and modeling studies. However, these interconnected basins and their hydrodynamic interactions have not received attention as a contiguous unit. The Strait of Juan de Fuca is the primary pathway through which Pacific Ocean water enters the Salish Sea but the role played by Johnstone Strait and the complex channels northeast of Vancouver Island, connecting the Salish Sea and the Pacific Ocean, on overall Salish Sea circulation has not been characterized. In this paper we present a modeling-based assessment of the two-layer circulation and transport through the multiple interconnected sub-basins within the Salish Sea including the effect of exchange via Johnstone Strait and Discovery Islands. The Salish Sea Model previously developed using the finite volume community ocean model (FVCOM) was expanded over the continental shelf for this assessment encircling Vancouver Island, including Discovery Islands, Johnstone Strait, Broughton Archipelago and the associated waterways. A computational technique was developed to allow summation of volume fluxes across arbitrary transects through unstructured finite volume cells. Tidally averaged volume fluxes were computed at multiple transects. The results were used to validate the classic model of Circulation in Embracing Sills for Puget Sound and to provide quantitative estimates of the lateral distribution of tidally averaged transport through the system. Sensitivity tests with and without exchanges through Johnstone Strait demonstrate that it is a pathway for Georgia Basin runoff and Fraser River water to exit the Salish Sea and for Pacific Ocean inflow. However the relative impact of this exchange on circulation and flushing in Puget Sound Basin is small.