Behaviors of the Yukon River Sediment Plume in the Bering Sea: Relations to Glacier-Melt Discharge and Sediment Load

Sediment plumes, released to the Bering Sea from delta front of Yukon River, Alaska, are initiated mainly by glacier-melt sediment runoffs in glacierized regions River drainage basin. The surface plumes extended around fan-shaped delta, which is followed northwestward dispersion. During continuous measurements discharge and load, behaviors were explored shipboard coastal observations Sea. At high river load ca. 2500 kg/s, plume partially plunged into sea bottom layer. plunging probably originated nepheloid-layer formation flocculation river-suspended sediment, more than 90% wt. silt clay (grain size d < 63 ?m). In order numerically obtain area a satellite image analysis was performed using three near-infrared bands MODIS/Aqua or MODIS/Terra. significantly correlated (R2 = 0.735, p 0.01) averaged for two days with time lags 20 21 date certain image. Hence, dispersion plume-suspended appears be controlled runoff events rather northward “Alaskan Coastal Water”.