The Dnipro-Buh plume: A tale of high-volume freshwater discharge in a non-tidal sea

The Dnipro River has the second-largest annually-averaged discharge among European rivers and together with the Pivdennyi Buh River runs off on the Black Sea northwestern shelf, forming the Dnipro-Buh coastal buoyant plume. This study presents shipboard observations of the Dnipro-Buh plume in May of 1992 and 1994, when the freshwater discharge was lower and higher, respectively, than its climatological value for May, while the wind forcing was light and variable. In-situ data are complemented with satellite images obtained under similar forcing conditions at later times. Weak mixing in the Dnipro-Buh estuary leads to the formation of a thin, 1.5–3 m deep surface-advected plume. The estuarine outflow runs off parallel with the coastline, but with downstream distance it rapidly expands offshore over multiple baroclinic Rossby radii. On synoptic to monthly time scales, the Dnipro-Buh plume spreads in bimodal fashion, both upstream and downstream from the estuarine mouth. The downstream geostrophic transport of freshwater in the plume is a small fraction of the freshwater discharge feeding the plume. Also, as salinity anomaly decreases offshore, the freshwater content remains near-constant or even increases. This implies that the freshwater spreading is sustained by cross-frontal “diffusion” to a greater extent than through the advection by geostrophic circulation associated with the plume. Meso- and submesoscale instabilities are likely to play a major role in mixing and offshore spreading of the Dnipro-Buh plume. •The Dnipro-Buh plume rapidly widens with distance from the mouth.•The geostrophic transport of freshwater is a small fraction of the riverine discharge.•Significant upstream penetration of buoyant water occurs without persistent upwelling winds.