Australia - The Murray mouth & the effect of the tides

This is a post to provide a convenient repository for charts & images I've linked to in this post on Jennifer Marohasy's blog concerning the Murray-Darling Basin, and the Murray mouth and the barrages in particular. First, a bird's-eye view of the subject under discussion (the full-size pic is BIG btw):

Murray mouth from the NW                                                              Source: Carbon Talks Blog

... and a map of the area of the lakes and the mouth showing the barrages:

The Barrages                                                  Source: Murray-Darling Basin Commission 2005

Another BIG hi-res pic showing the incoming tide and dredging in progress.

Murray mouth - dredging in progress, July 2010                                     Source: Water for Good

Bathymetric (depth) map of Lake Alexandrina

Bathymetry - Lake Alexandrina (May 2009)                      Source: Department of Environment

Bathymetric (depth) map of the mouth and upper Coorong.

Bathymetry - Murray mouth & Upper Coorong (2010)       Source: Department of Environment

Bathymetric (depth) map of the lower Coorong, South Lagoon.

Bathymetric map - Coorong South Lagoon (2010)           Source: Department of Environment

The tides at Goolwa Beach, off the map to the NW (actually from Victor Harbor) during April 2012, reproduced from WillyWeather and combined by me:

.. and sea level at Victor Harbor, 2000-2010 (note the zero trend):

Portland, VIC, though a fair distance (I'll check it out) away to the SE, is IMHO a good proxy for Victor Harbor, and therefore the Murray mouth. Peak tides at Victor Harbor are often higher than at Portland, though the monthly and annual profiles are almost exactly in step. Here's the max. and min. tides for Victor Harbor (read from WillyWeather) for February 2012, chosen because there's an overlap with the latest available hourly data from Portland:

Note the individual tidal range increases from 0.5m on the 1st and 2nd up to 0.9m on the 7th, when there's a stretch of double-tides, with the lesser second tide increasing as the first tide begins to decrease. Two green "trough" (low tide) markers close together indicates two tides over 24-25 hours. The extreme tidal range is 1m, from 0.2m above datum to 1.2m. MSL is 0.65 (calculated) above datum. The resolution here is 0.1m, so the accuracy is +/- 0.5m (5cm). The NTC (BoM) flags Victor Harbor as having a range of 1.25m over a year as shown below:

Tidal range around the Australian coast.                     Source: Bureau of Meteorology

... and a wind rose for Adelaide (nearest location on the selector map here.)

Wind rose for Adelaide, SA                                           Source: Bureau of Meteorology

This shows that for about one third of the time, the wind is from the NE or N, pushing the sea back from the Murray mouth, assuming there's little difference between Adelaide and the mouth.

I'll add a few more charts later to demonstrate the parallels between Portland and Victor Harbor (and therefore the mouth) later, but this hourly chart for Portland gives a good picture of the annual tidal profile (though with slightly lower extreme tidal range). Note the lighter areas indicating single tides, the darker areas double tides, and the annual tidal profile and range. Month numbers on the bottom (x) axis are out-of-step because calendar months have varying numbers of days, though after May they line up quite well.

... and finally, another very large hi-res aerial photo of the mouth, this time at low tide, complete with ubiquitous and never-tiring dredger. Note how far out the waves begin to break over the shallow-sloping sea bed.

Murray mouth at low tide, dredging in progress                                        Source: StudyAdelaide

Any suggestions for content and/or links below, please....