Modeling of Coastal Ocean Flow Fields
Abstract
The long-term goals of this project are to understand the physical oceanographic circulation processes on continental shelves with emphasis on the mechanisms involved in across-shelf transport. The scientific objectives include the application of numerical circulation models to process studies and to simulations of continental shelf fields, including the nearshore surf zone, to help achieve understanding of the flow dynamics. The numerical experiments are supplemented with analytical studies whenever possible. Overall, considerable progress was made toward these objectives with notable contributions in several areas. Some examples are the following. New results were obtained for downwelling flow fields including information about vertically well-mixed regions nearshore, downwelling fronts, and symmetric instabilities in the bottom boundary layer. Bottom boundary layer flows on the shelf under downwelling conditions were shown in general to be susceptible to the occurrence of symmetric instabilities. Results of studies of instabilities of alongshore currents over plane beaches show the nonlinear evolution of shear instabilities, after initial growth at the wavelength of the most unstable linear mode, into new larger-wavelength, propagating, unsteady disturbances. Results with sand bar topography point to the possible existence in the nearshore surf zone of an energetic eddy field associated with instabilities of the alongshore current.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA398915
Entities
People
- John S. Allen
Organizations
- Oregon State University