Subtidal surface circulation in lower Cook Inlet and Kachemak Bay, Alaska

Nearly 90 Lagrangian surface drifters were deployed and often recovered and re-deployed in lower Cook Inlet and Kachemak Bay from 2003 through 2007 and from 2012 through 2017. Velocity vectors calculated from the hourly position data by central finite-differences were low-passed filtered to create maps of the mean, sub-tidal surface circulation. The circulation maps, while generally consistent with the results of Burbank (1977) and Muench et al. (1978), provide new detail showing anti-cyclonic circulation around Kalgin Island, a single cyclonic circulation cell in outer Kachemak Bay, and two circulation cells, one cyclonic and the other anti-cyclonic, in inner Kachemak Bay.