NICOP - Improved Wave Spectral Characterization of the Southern Ocean
Abstract
The Southern Ocean is the southernmost part of the global ocean and represents around 22%of the sea surface area. The combination o"f persistent westerly winds, and the largely unbrokenexpanse of sea, produces potentially enormous fetches, resulting in the Southe"rn Oceanexperiencing higher wave heights for longer periods than any other body of water. Due to theharsh ocean environment and re"mote location, it is also the least observed of any ocean body.This lack of observations as well as research focus, have meant that" wave models havehistorically performed relatively poorly in the Southern Ocean.Operational wave models have experienced a period" of rapid development in recent years. TheWAVEWATCH III model in particular has received much attention, primarily through jointin"ternational efforts under the NOPP operational wave model improvement project. Perhapsmost significant for the open ocean has been" the implementation of improved source terms,adding considerable robustness to the underlying physical processes of wave generation"" anddissipation within the model. While these promise significant improvement in the SouthernOcean, they have not been adequately" validated.The Southern Ocean is also a region of persistent strong eddie current fields in and around theAntarctic Circumpolar Cu"rrent circulating Antarctica. The impact of these currents on the largescale wave field has not been adequately addressed, and prel"iminary work suggests that this isa dominant source of wave model error in this region.This project aims to provide a quantitative assessment of the performance of recentlyimplemented improvements of source term physics in WAVEWATCH III in the Southern Ocean.This will include an analysis of the relative importance of large scale ocean currents. This workwill utilize two recent wave buoy d"eployments, providing the first in-situ wave measurements inthe Southern Ocean. Improved physical robustness of operational wave mo""del source terms,availability of in-situ observations and the rapid maturation of eddy resolving operationalhydrodynamic models in" recent years combine to make this investigation both valuable andtimely.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Nov 03, 2017
- Source ID
- N629091712164
Entities
People
- Tom Durrant
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy