The Response of the Coastal Waters of Northwest Italy.

Abstract

Two-month long low-pass records of the coastal currents and winds have been analysed for two locations off the northwestern coast of Italy. Most of the energy was found to be in the long period (>20 day) motions and there was low coherence between the currents and wind except for time scales around 5 days. This suggests that either the wind was exciting a rotational mode of the entire Western Mediterranean or else that the weather systems were more coherent spatially at the 5-day time scale. A depth-integrated hydrodynamic model is being used to resolve the time scales and the effects of bottom topography. The coastal currents may make a significant contribution to the day-to-day variability in sound speed, especially near frontal zones, due to the along-shore advection of water differing acoustic properties. Consequently, accurate prediction of the sound speed at a fixed location may not be obtained until the coastal dynamics are clearly understood. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 15, 1978
Accession Number
ADA067254

Entities

People

  • Alan J. Elliott

Organizations

  • SACLANT ASW Research Centre

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Propagation
  • Acoustic Properties
  • Barometric Pressure
  • Climate Change
  • Deep Oceans
  • Deep Water
  • Measurement
  • Nato
  • Observation
  • Oceans
  • Regions
  • Sea Level
  • Shallow Water
  • Temperature Gradients
  • Topography
  • Water
  • Wind Stress

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Coastal Oceanography
  • European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers