Numerical analysis of effects of tidal variations on storm surges and waves

This study examines the effects of tides on surges, wave setups and waves, in terms of tidal amplitudes and phases, by using a coupled numerical model of Surge, WAve and Tide (called as SuWAT). The SuWAT model, composed of depth integrated nonlinear shallow water equations and Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) model, is able to simultaneously run with an arbitrary number of nested domains by using the Message Passing Interface. The results for an idealized case indicate that surge and wave setup are increased in the phase of low water and decreased in the high water phase; on the other hand, waves change in a reverse manner. Such changes are enhanced by large tidal variations. The conventional method (e.g., surge plus tide independently) has the possibility of overestimation for the total water level. The hindcast results for Typhoon Ewiniar in 2006 show that the run with tides is more accurate 10% than that without tides in coastal areas of Korea. The nested scheme improves the accuracy up to 40% for the prediction of water levels in the simulations. It is shown that the present coupled model, SuWAT, is capable of predicting both water levels and waves under storm events with reasonable accuracy against the observations.     

Analysis of freak wave measurements in the Sea of Japan

This paper presents an analysis of a set of available freak wave measurements gathered from several periods of continuous wave recordings made in the Sea of Japan during 1986–1990 by the Ship Research Institute of Japan. The analysis provides an ideal opportunity to catch a glimpse of the statistics of freak waves in the ocean. The results show that a well-defined freak wave may occur in the developed wind–wave condition: S(f)∝f⁻⁴, with single-peak directional spectra. The crest and trough amplitude distributions of the observed sea waves including freak waves are different from the Rayleigh distribution, although the wave height distribution tends to agree with the Rayleigh distribution. Freak waves can be readily identified from the wavelet spectrum where a strong energy density occurs in the spectrum, and is instantly surged and seemingly carried over to the high-frequency components at the instant the freak wave occurs.     

Estimation of the bispectra and phase distribution of storm sea states with abnormal waves

This work deals with the estimation of the bispectrum of wind waves during severe storms containing abnormal or freak waves. It presents the basic definitions of higher-order spectra and of the bispectra in particular and further suggests how to interpret some of the results to identify non-linearity in the wave time series. Different estimation methods are used and compared so as to identify the differences in the estimated bispectra that results from the estimation procedure and the ones that result from the physics of the sea states. It is found that as a result of the second-order self-coupling the phase distribution of the wind wave during the severe storms differs from the uniform one and is well approximated by the distribution proposed by Tayfun and Lo [1989. Envelope, phase and narrow-band models of sea waves. Journal of Waterway Port Coast and Ocean Engineering 115(5), 594–613.].     

Sensitivity of wave model predictions to wind fields in the Western Mediterranean sea

The paper compares the wave hindcast in the Western Mediterranean sea using the reanalysis wind fields from HIPOCAS and ERA-40 from ECMWF for November 2001. The study has concentrated on the Mediterranean coast of Spain where there are known difficulties with the wind and wave modelling. Two winter storms have been compared. The main differences between the significant wave heights using the ERA-40 reanalysis (ECMWF) and HIPOCAS reanalysis winds were observed to increase when moving southwards in the geographical domain at the offshore locations. Systematic negative biases of Hs were obtained with the ERA-40 data at all the coastal locations analyzed, whereas positive biases are typical for the HIPOCAS reanalysis. For offshore and coastal locations when using the ERA-40 data the Hs biases increased moving to South, while this pattern was not so clear for the HIPOCAS data. The inconsistencies in the comparisons of modelled waves against measurements seem to be associated with the quality of the wind fields.     

Characteristics of developing waves as a function of atmospheric conditions,water properties,fetch and duration

For any specific wind speed, waves grow in period, height and length as a function of the wind duration and fetch until maximum values are reached, at which point the waves are considered to be fully developed. Although equations and nomograms exist to predict the parameters of developing waves for shorter fetch or duration conditions at different wind speeds, these either do not incorporate important variables such as the air and water temperature, or do not consider the combined effect of fetch and duration. Here, the wind conditions required for a fully developed sea are calculated from maximum wave heights as determined from the wind speed, together with a published growth law based on the friction velocity. This allows the parameters of developing waves to be estimated for any combination of wind velocity, fetch and duration, while also taking account of atmospheric conditions and water properties.     

Modeling hurricane waves and storm surge using integrally-coupled,scalable computations

The unstructured-mesh SWAN spectral wave model and the ADCIRC shallow-water circulation model have been integrated into a tightly-coupled SWAN + ADCIRC model. The model components are applied to an identical, unstructured mesh; share parallel computing infrastructure; and run sequentially in time. Wind speeds, water levels, currents and radiation stress gradients are vertex-based, and therefore can be passed through memory or cache to each model component. Parallel simulations based on domain decomposition utilize identical sub-meshes, and the communication is highly localized. Inter-model communication is intra-core, while intra-model communication is inter-core but is local and efficient because it is solely on adjacent sub-mesh edges. The resulting integrated SWAN + ADCIRC system is highly scalable and allows for localized increases in resolution without the complexity or cost of nested meshes or global interpolation between heterogeneous meshes. Hurricane waves and storm surge are validated for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, demonstrating the importance of inclusion of the wave-circulation interactions, and efficient performance is demonstrated to 3062 computational cores.     

未破碎变浅随机海浪的波高统计分布

利用青岛海洋大学海洋实验室现代化的大型水槽,设计进行了多种海浪强度下,由深水传入近岸不同坡度水底上的变浅随机海浪的模型实验。依据实验资料统计分析结果表明：对近岸变浅随机海浪而言,其波高分布不再符合Ｒａｙｌｅｉｇｈ分布,与Глуховский的经验分布也有差异,它不仅与参量Ｈ＊＝Ｈ／ｄ有关,且与表征深水海浪的波形特征量Ｈ０／Ｔ２０有关,并获得其经验关系,为实验应用变浅随机海浪的波高统计分布提供了可能。     

世界大洋长历时局地风速和有效波高的统计与分析

本文基于美国海军测地卫星高度计提供的全球范围长历时局地平均风速和有效波高资料进行统计分析,结果表明,世界大洋长历时局地平均风速和有效波高有明显的相关性,其散布点系统地位于Wilson提出的深水充分成长风浪平均风速和有效波高经验曲线之上;并从能量叠加平衡方程,近似定量估计出大洋中长历时涌浪有效波高与局地平均风速的关系。     

Occurrence probability of a freak wave in a nonlinear wave field

The Edgeworth’s form of a cumulative expansion of the probability density function (PDF) of surface elevation expands the maximum wave height distribution to predict the occurrence probability of freak waves. This study investigated the enhancement of the occurrence probability of freak waves due to the fourth order moment of surface elevation, kurtosis, change and found that the nonlinear effects on the occurrence probability of a freak wave linearly depends on kurtosis for a small number of waves N=250. The statistical theory was compared with field data, and freak waves sometimes appear when not expected by the Rayleigh theory, but they were predicted by the proposed theory.     

Wave set-up in the storm surge along open coasts during Typhoon Anita

Wave set-up in storm surges is studied using a numerical model for coasts in Tosa Bay, Japan, open to the Pacific Ocean. Simulation models employing only atmospheric pressures and winds as external forces are unable to properly simulate open coast storm surge heights, such as those due to Typhoon Anita (1970). However, the present study shows that a numerical model incorporating wave-induced radiation stresses, as well as wind stresses and pressure gradients, is able to account for the open coast surge heights. There is a maximum contribution of 40% by the radiation stresses to the peak sea level rises. This study also evaluates the effects of the tides; including the tides improves the agreement between the predicted water surface elevations and the observations. The difference in predictions between one-way coupling from wave to surge models and two-way coupling of the surge and wave models is found to be small.     

Appraisal of storm beach buffer width for cyclonic waves

The loss of beach sand from berm and dune due to high waves and surge is a universal phenomenon associated with sporadic storm activities. To protect the development in a coastal hazard zone, hard structures or coastal setback have been established in many countries around the world. In this paper, the requirement of a storm beach buffer, being a lesser extent landward comparing with the coastal setback to ensure the safety of infrastructures, is numerically assessed using the SBEACH model for three categories of wave conditions in terms of storm return period, median sand grain size, berm width, and design water level. Two of the key outputs from the numerical calculations, berm retreat and bar formation offshore, are then analysed, as well as beach profile change. After having performed a series of numerical studies on selected large wave tank (LWT) test results with monochromatic waves using SBEACH, we may conclude that: (1) Berm erosion increases and submerged bar develops further offshore as the storm return period increases for beach with a specific sand grain size, or as the sand grain reduces on a beach under the action of identical wave condition; (2) Higher storm waves yield a large bar to form quicker and subsequently cause wave breaking on the bar crest, which can reduce the wave energy and limit the extent of the eroding berm; (3) A larger buffer width is required for a beach comprising small sand grain, in order to effectively absorb storm wave energy; and (4) Empirical relationships can be tentatively proposed to estimate the storm beach buffer width, from the input of wave conditions and sediment grain size. These results would benefit a beach nourishment project for shore protection or design of a recreational beach.     

A ten-year data set for fetch- and depth-limited wave growth

This paper presents the key results from a ten-year data set for Lake IJssel and Lake Sloten in The Netherlands, containing information on wind, storm surges and waves, supplemented with SWAN 40.51 wave model results. The wind speeds U₁₀, effective fetches x and water depths d for the data set ranged from 0–24 m s^− 1, 0.8–25 km and 1.2–6 m respectively. For locations with non-sloping bottoms, the range in non-dimensional fetch x? ( = gxU₁₀^− 2) was about 25–80,000, while the range in dimensionless depth d? ( = g d U₁₀^− 2) was about 0.03–1.7. Land–water wind speed differences were much smaller than the roughness differences would suggest. Part of this seems due to thermal stability effects, which even play a role during near-gale force winds. For storm surges, a spectral response analysis showed that Lake IJssel has several resonant peaks at time scales of order 1 h. As for the waves, wave steepnesses and dimensionless wave heights H? ( = gH_m0U₁₀^− 2) agreed reasonably well with parametric growth curves, although there is no single curve to which the present data fit best for all cases. For strongly depth-limited waves, the extreme values of d? (0.03) and H_m0 / d (0.44) at the 1.7 m deep Lake Sloten were very close to the extremes found in Lake George, Australia. For the 5 m deep Lake IJssel, values of H_m0 / d were higher than the depth-limited asymptotes of parametric wave growth curves. The wave model test cases of this study demonstrated that SWAN underestimates H_m0 for depth-limited waves and that spectral details (enhanced peak, secondary humps) were not well reproduced from H_m0 / d = 0.2–0.3 on. SWAN also underestimated the quick wave response (within 0.3–1 h) to sudden wind increases. For the remaining cases, the new [Van der Westhuysen, A.J., Zijlema, M., and Battjes, J.A., 2007. Nonlinear saturation-based whitecapping dissipation in SWAN for deep and shallow water, Coast. Eng., 54, 151–170] SWAN physics yielded better results than the standard physics of Komen, G.J., Hasselmann, S., Hasselmann, K., 1984. On the existence of a fully developed wind-sea spectrum. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 14, 1271–1285, except for persistent overestimations that were found for short fetches. The present data set contains many interesting cases for detailed model validation and for further studies into the evolution of wind waves in shallow lakes.     

Extreme wave parameters under North Atlantic extratropical cyclones

A characterization of extreme wave parameters during extratropical cyclones in the Northern hemisphere is made from WAM wave model hindcasts. In February 2007 two extratropical storms were observed in the North Atlantic and the wave fields associated with them are modeled in this paper. Wave buoy and satellite altimetry data were used to validate the WAM hindcast results. The distribution of the Benjamin–Feir index (BFI), kurtosis and the ratio of maximum wave height to significant wave height (abnormality index) around the eye of the two extratropical cyclones is studied. It is found that under these conditions the BFI and kurtosis are significantly larger mainly in the fourth quadrant and also when the wind direction is aligned with the wave propagation direction. In these regions the probability of occurrence of abnormal waves is higher.     

Has wind–wave modeling reached its limit?

This article uses a comparison of four different numerical wave prediction models for hindcast wave conditions in Lake Michigan during a 10-day episode in October 1988 to illustrate that typical wave prediction models based on the concept of a wave energy spectrum may have reached a limit in the accuracy with which they can simulate realistic wave generation and growth conditions. In the hindcast study we compared the model results to observed wave height and period measurements from two deep water NOAA/NDBC weather buoys and from a nearshore Waverider buoy. Hourly wind fields interpolated from a large number of coastal and overlake observations were used to drive the models. The same numerical grid was used for all the models. The results show that while the individual model predictions deviate from the measurements by various amounts, they all tend to reflect the general trend and patterns of the wave measurements. The differences between the model results are often similar in magnitude to differences between model results and observations. Although the four models tested represent a wide range of sophistication in their treatment of wave growth dynamics, they are all based on the assumption that the sea state can be represented by a wave energy spectrum. Because there are more similarities among the model results than significant differences, we believe that this assumption may be the limiting factor for substantial improvements in wave modeling.     

Anisotropy of wind and wave regimes in the Baltic proper

The directional distribution of moderate and strong winds in the Baltic Sea region is shown to be strongly anisotropic. The dominating wind direction is south-west and a secondary peak corresponds to north winds. North-west storms are relatively infrequent and north-east storms are extremely rare. Angular distribution of extreme wind speed also has a two-peaked shape with maxima corresponding to south-west and north winds, and a deep minimum for easterly winds. The primary properties of the anisotropy such as prevailing winds, frequency of their occurrence, directional distribution of mean and maximum wind speeds coincide on both sides of the Baltic proper. The specific wind regime penetrates neither into the mainland nor into the Gulf of Finland or the Gulf of Riga.Properties of the saturated wave field in the neighbourhood of proposed sites of the Saaremaa (Ösel) deep harbour are analysed on the basis of the wave model WAM forced by steady winds. The directional distribution of wave heights in typical and extreme storms is highly anisotropic. Remarkable wave height anomalies may occur in the neighbourhood of the harbour sites.     

Analysis and simulation of wave records through fast Hartley transform

The Hartley transform, a real-valued alternative to the complex Fourier transform, is presented as an efficient tool for the analysis and synthesis of ocean surface wave records. Basic theoretical properties of this real-valued transform are briefly reviewed. Similarities and differences between Fourier and Hartley integral transforms, as well as computational benefits and disadvantages between numerical algorithms used to evaluate their discrete versions, are presented. The fast Hartley transform algorithm is used to simulate stationary Gaussian time series of the sea surface elevation and to estimate the spectral density function, the Hilbert transform and the envelope function of wave records.     

青岛沿海风暴潮分析

利用“青岛海军验潮站”(青岛大港1号码头)1949~2003年潮汐资料,采用统计风暴高潮位≥510cm出现频数的方法,对青岛沿海风暴潮进行统计分析。结果表明:诱发青岛沿海显著风暴高潮位的天气系统都是台风,集中出现在8月下旬~9月上旬,阴历初三至初五、十五至十八两个天文大潮时段。     

Hindcast of the wave conditions along the west Iberian coast

This paper describes the development of a wave prediction system for the west Iberian coast. The implemented wave prediction system is based on two state-of-the-art spectral wave models, WAM for the ocean area and SWAN for the nearshore. However, because of its extended geographical space the SWAN model will include some generation effects in the coarse SWAN simulations, complemented by wave transformation effects near the coast. The system was validated by means of extended hindcast runs in various regions belonging to the continental Portuguese coastal environment, which were compared with buoy data, focusing on the extreme energetic events and both direct comparisons and statistical results are presented.