Acoustic Doppler profiler (ADP) data are used to describe depth-integrated
transport and vertical shear at two study sites along the open western boun
dary of Florida Bay. During a 404-day study period, transport was into the
bay at the northern study site, where the depth-averaged 3.2 m. Transport a
t the southern study site, where the depth averaged 2.0 m, was out of the b
ay during a 266-day time period. A comparison of flow in the top and bottom
layers of the ADP profile at the northern study site reveals patterns that
are very different from each other, and very different from the depth-inte
grated transport. Nontidal Row in the surface layer is nearly consistently
out of the bay and highly correlated with wind forcing. East-west near-bott
om flow is inversely correlated with the rise and fall of water level in no
rthwest Florida Bay. Nontidal east-west Row in the bottom layer is negligib
le, suggesting a near balance between westward directed wind stress and eas
tward directed barotropic pressure gradients maintained by the setdown of w
ater level in the bay. At the southern study site, near-bottom flow is simi
lar to near-surface Row, and both are similar to depth-integrated transport
. Ar both locations, the instantaneous directional shear from near-surface
to near-bottom levels is less than 1 degrees on average. Also. at both stud
y sites, vertically integrated cumulative net transport can he approximated
using current observations from a single level within the water column. On
ly at the southern study site, however, can the cumulative net displacement
at any level be approximated by extrapolating vertically from mid-depth ob
servations. Roughness lengths calculated from ADP profiles are concentrated
below 1 cm but highly variable, and ADP profiles are not well suited for e
stimating bottom roughness.