The coastal water temperature changes caused by offshore deep thermal discharge: An In-situ measured study

Industrial thermal discharge, especially the cooling water from the once-through cooling pass (OTC), will directly put continuous waste heat into environmental waters. The extra heat input can largely alter the local aquatic environment and changed the biochemical characteristics, causing thermal pollution to coastal sea, estuaries and large rivers. Recent year, offshore deep discharging is increasingly used to reduce the thermal effect for inshore area. This study focus the diffusion and transportation of warmed water output from deep offshore outlet, intend to make it clear that how thermal discharge change the coastal hydraulic and thermal characteristics, such as the artificial thermocline. In winter of 2017 and summer of 2018, in-situ surveys of water temperature and tidal flow by ships, buoys and airborne infrared scanner at Changjiang power plant of China was accomplished. In this study, both local tidal condition, vertical and surface water temperature distributions, meteorological condition at sea surface and onshore, local background temperature, water intaking and discharging of the plants were analyzed in an unified framework. Based on the measured results. Study shows that the near field and far-field temperature distributions and thermal characteristics are largely affected by local tidal process.