Barotropic waves along an eastern continental shelf

Abstract

An analysis is presented of the propagation of barotropic non-divergent oscillations along the western side of an ocean basin along which the persistent circulation in the basin is strongly intensified and laterally sheared. Because the Rossby number of a western boundary current is near unity, the properties of these waves are strongly affected by the steady circulation pattern. It is shown that for relatively long wavelengths, these waves can travel along the shelf in both directions; however, for a small range of short wavelengths they can only propagate northward and are unstable. Along the southeastern coast of North America, the unstable waves have wavelengths of order 150 km and periods of order 10 days. However, these waves can become stable oscillations in the deeper water northeast of Cape Hatteras. These oscillations are a possible explanation of the initiation of Gulf Stream meanders along the continental rise.     

Observations of near-inertial oscillations along the Brazilian continental shelf break

Ocean Dynamics - Near-inertial oscillations (NIO) are intermittent motions with a frequency close to the inertial frequency and represent an important fraction of the energy to the currents in the...     

Unstructured,anisotropic mesh generation for the Northwestern European continental shelf,the continental slope and the neighbouring ocean

A new mesh refinement strategy for generating high quality unstructured meshes of the Northwestern European continental shelf, the continental slope and the neighbouring ocean is presented. Our objective is to demonstrate the ability of anisotropic unstructured meshes to adequately address the challenge of simulating the hydrodynamics occurring in these three regions within a unique mesh. The refinement criteria blend several hydrodynamic considerations as the tidal wave propagation on the continental shelf and the hydrostatic consistency condition in steep areas. Several meshes illustrate both the validity and the efficiency of the refinement strategy. The selection of the refinement parameters is discussed. Finally, an attempt is made to take into account tidal ellipses, providing another cause for anisotropy in the mesh.     

A coupled tide-wave model for the NW European shelf seas

Understanding the interaction of tides and waves is essential in many studies, including marine renewable energy, sediment transport, long-term seabed morphodynamics, storm surges and the impacts of climate change. In the present research, a COAWST model of the NW European shelf seas has been developed and applied to a number of physical processes. Although many aspects of wave–current interaction can be investigated by this model, our focus is on the interaction of barotropic tides and waves at shelf scale. While the COWAST model was about five times more computationally expensive than running decoupled ROMS (ocean model) and SWAN (wave model), it provided an integrated modelling system which could incorporate many wave–tide interaction processes, and produce the tide and wave parameters in a unified file system with a convenient post-processing capacity. Some applications of the model such as the effect of tides on quantifying the wave energy resource, which exceeded 10% in parts of the region, and the effect of waves on the calculation of the bottom stress, which was dominant in parts of the North Sea and Scotland, during an energetic wave period are presented, and some challenges are discussed. It was also shown that the model performance in the prediction of the wave parameters can improve by 25% in some places where the wave-tide interaction is significant.     

Sea level fluctuations on the east coast of Taiwan that overlie continental shelf break

Captured CO₂ could be deliberately injected into the ocean at great depth, where most of it would remain isolated from the atmosphere for centuries. CO₂ can be transported via pipeline or ship for release in the ocean or on the sea floor. No matter what for medium depth or deep sea, it appears that a potential area exists between 122–122.5°E and 21.8–22.3°N for CO₂ sequestration. The east coast of Taiwan can be a candidate for CO₂ temporary storage or transmitted plant. To have whole picture of assessment of sea level fluctuation, a completed statistical summary of seasonal sea level at six tidal gauge stations along the east coast of Taiwan is provided herein. Seasonal sea level time series is analyzed using spectral analysis in frequency domain to identify periodic component and phase propagation, especially for the astronomical-driven tidal effects. It identifies that the semi-diurnal and diurnal components in the resultant time series are related to astronomical tides M₂, and K₁ and O₁, respectively. It demonstrates a full analysis of sea level variations, and results can be useful when construction of testing or operating facilities on sea surface becomes desirable in the future.     

Critical levels for forced Rossby and continental shelf waves

The generation of waves on a geostrophic shear flow by a travelling forcing pattern is considered. The model describes both atmospheric Rossby waves on a zonal shear flow and continental shelf waves on a boundary current. By means of the Laplace transform technique, the development of the solution in time is studied, starting from some initial instant when the forcing starts. The asymptotic form of the forced solution is shown to depend crucially upon whether the speed of the travelling forcing lies inside the range of the current or not. The possible application of the results to the Florida current is discussed.     

Effect of earth tide on deep well water level

On the basis of the partial differential equations of the water level in a deep well that is affected by the bulk strain tide, the boundary conditions of permeating each other between aquifer and well are considered. The solutions of the equations have been obtained by the superposition principle, inpulse theorem and separation of the variations. Some suitable values are given to the parameters of well aquifer in the solutions. By means of the numerical calculation the relations among the well tide coefficients and phase lag phenomenon of response of the well level to earth tides is well interpreted. The parametric studies and the obtained graphs show that the more the radius of casing in a well, the porosity of an aquifer and the bulk compressibility for solid matrix of an aquifer, the less the transmissibility of an aquifer, then the less the tidal coefficient of well level, while the more the phase lag for well level to respond to the tide is. The response of the well level to the tide of longer period is better than the shorter period events. The Chinese version of this paper appeared in the Chinese edition ofActa Seismologica Sinica,13, 66–75, 1991.     

Biological enhancement of solute exchange between sediments and bottom water on the Washington continental shelf

Solute exchange between the interstitial waters and overlying waters on the Washington continental shelf was investigated based on measurements of the pore-water sulfate distribution and sulfate reduction rates as well as through models describing the distribution of sulfate in anaerobic pore waters. The depth-integrated sulfate reduction rate greatly exceeded the influx of sulfate attributable to molecular diffusion and sediment accumulation acting on the measured vertical sulfate gradients, and indicated that additional transport mechanisms must have been operating. Sediment mixing was probably not the primary mechanism since high eddy diffusivities would be required to depths of 30 cm to maintain the observed sulfate distribution, whereas previously measured²¹⁰Pb distributions indicated sediment mixing is primarily restricted to depths <7 cm. Irrigation of bottom water through animal burrows was the most likely mechanism. To describe this process, a general diffusive irrigation coefficient, B, was formulated. Vertical profiles of B showed the main irrigation zone occurred between 2 and 10 cm with reduced irrigation rates occurring below this. These coefficients calculated from the sulfate distribution were similar to ones calculated from previously published radon measurements at the same stations, indicating that this formulation of irrigation exchange may be useful in modelling the exchange of dissolved solutes between the pore water and the bottom water.     

Theoretic analysis on phase delay phenomena of well water level tide in the double medium aquifer model

Introduction The phenomenon of water level tide was discovered at Duchort diggings, Czech in 1879. By 1939, Theis, an America hydrogeologist, confirmed that periodical wave of the well water level is caused by the solid tide. In 1964, Melchior, a Belgium geophysist, began to make research on this phenomenon. Then Cooper (1965), Bredehoeft (1967) and WANG, et al (1988) followed. In China the study on water level tide began with 1970s, and the study on well water level phase lagging began …     

A theoretical model for the intrusion of the Kuroshio across the continental shelf of East China Sea

Here we use a two-layer model to study the dynamics of the intrusion of the Kuroshio onto the continental shelf. Results show that the interaction of the Kuroshio water and shelf water produces a stable upwelling zone above 100 m depth northeast of Taiwan, which provides a dynamical explanation to the presence of the cold core previously observed by satellite. The affected shelf water from the interaction has an onshore portion, which turns right and becomes a northward alongshore flow when it moves closer to shore. This implies that the Kuroshio water cannot penetrate deep onto the inner part of the continental shelf, but it generates a strong northward jet that is formed mainly by the shelf water.