The long-range scientific goal is to understand the dynamics of the subtidal circulation over a continental shelf heavily impacted by seasonal changes in wind and buoyancy forcing. Fundamental understanding of coastal circulation depends on the relative roles and feedbacks between forcing, stratificaiton and turbulent mixing. To advance our understanding, we need observations on continental shelves with large contributions from wind, buoyancy and turbulent mixing. The Vietnamese Shelf and slope is the ideal test case, because of strong seasonal monsoon wind forcing, large buoyancy inputs from the Mekong, Red and numerous smaller rivers, and the potential for highly variable mixing rates associated with winds, tides and large amplitude nonlinear internal waves.
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