Surface Wave Processes on the Continental Shelf and Beach
Abstract
Wind waves and swell dominate the hydrodynamic and sediment transport processes on many continental shelves and beaches, drive near shore circulation and morphology, and play an important role in remote sensing. Accurate wave prediction in coastal environments is a daunting challenge because waves are affected by many physical processes, including scattering by seafloor topography, wave-current interactions, nonlinear effects, wave breaking, and friction in the bottom boundary layer. Several of these processes are poorly understood and existing wave prediction models rely on parameterizations and empirical calibration to represent them. The long-term goals of this research are to obtain a better understanding of the physical processes that affect ocean surface waves in the coastal environment and develop improved wave prediction capability. The specific objectives of this study are as follows: (1) observe and predict the seafloor damping effects on ocean surface waves in sandy and muddy coastal environments, (2) advance deterministic and stochastic modeling capability for nonlinear wave evolution in coastal regions with complex seafloor topography and/or strong currents, (3) improve the representation of source terms in operational wave prediction models, and (4) predict the nonlinear shoaling transformation of waves on beaches. By combining theoretical advances with numerical models and field observations, we investigate the physical processes that affect ocean surface waves on continental shelves and beaches. The transformation of wave spectra is predicted with models that include the effects of refraction, scattering by wave-wave and wave-bottom interactions, parameterizations of bottom friction, and wave breaking. Extensive field data sets were collected in ONR experiments off North Carolina, California, and the Florida Gulf coast. Recently, we conducted additional experiments on the sandy Martha's Vineyard shelf and the muddy Louisiana shelf.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA527293
Entities
People
- R. T. Guza
- T. T. Janssen
- Thomas H. Herbers
- William C. O’reilly
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School