Impact of cyclone Nilam on tropical lower atmospheric dynamics

A deep depression formed over the Bay of Bengal on 28 October 2012, and developed into a cyclonic storm. After landfall near the south coast of Chennai, cyclone Nilam moved north-northwestwards. Coordinated experiments were conducted from the Indian stations of Gadanki(13.5?N, 79.2?E) and Hyderabad(17.4?N, 78.5?E) to study the modification of gravity-wave activity and turbulence by cyclone Nilam, using GPS radiosonde and mesosphere–stratosphere–troposphere radar data. The horizontal velocities underwent large changes during the closest approach of the storm to the experimental sites. Hodograph analysis revealed that inertia gravity waves(IGWs) associated with the cyclone changed their directions from northeast(control time) to northwest following the path of the cyclone. The momentum flux of IGWs and short-period gravity waves(1–8 h) enhanced prior to, and during, the passage of the storm(±0.05 m2s-2and ±0.3 m2s-2, respectively), compared to the flux after its passage. The corresponding body forces underwent similar changes, with values ranging between ±2–4m s-1d-1and ±12–15 m s-1d-1. The turbulence refractivity structure constant(C2n) showed large values below 10 km before the passage of the cyclone when humidity in the region was very high. Turbulence and humidity reduced during the passage of the storm when a turbulent layer at ～17 km became more intense. Turbulence in the lower troposphere and near the tropopause became weak after the passage of the cyclone.     

Diagnosis of the forcing of inertial-gravity waves in a severe convection system

The non-hydrostatic wave equation set in Cartesian coordinates is rearranged to gain insight into wave generation in a mesoscale severe convection system. The wave equation is characterized by a wave operator on the lhs, and forcing involving three terms—linear and nonlinear terms, and diabatic heating—on the rhs. The equation was applied to a case of severe convection that occurred in East China. The calculation with simulation data showed that the diabatic forcing and linear and nonlinear forcing presented large magnitude at different altitudes in the severe convection region. Further analysis revealed the diabatic forcing due to condensational latent heating had an important influence on the generation of gravity waves in the middle and lower levels. The linear forcing resulting from the Laplacian of potential-temperature linear forcing was dominant in the middle and upper levels. The nonlinear forcing was determined by the Laplacian of potential-temperature nonlinear forcing. Therefore, the forcing of gravity waves was closely associated with the thermodynamic processes in the severe convection case. The reason may be that, besides the vertical component of pressure gradient force, the vertical oscillation of atmospheric particles was dominated by the buoyancy for inertial gravity waves. The latent heating and potential-temperature linear and nonlinear forcing played an important role in the buoyancy tendency. Consequently, these thermodynamic elements influenced the evolution of inertial-gravity waves.     

Application of desingularized approach to water wave propagation over three-dimensional topography

A numerical approach based on desingularized boundary element method and mixed Eulerian–Lagrangian formulation [Zhang et al., 2006. Wave propagation in a fully nonlinear numerical wave tank: a desingularized method. Ocean Engineering 33, 2310–2331] is extended to solve the water wave propagation over arbitrary topography in a three-dimensional wave tank. A robust damping layer applicable for regular and irregular incident waves is employed to minimize the outgoing wave reflection back into the wave tank. Numerical results on the propagation of regular and irregular incident waves over the flat bottom and linear incident waves over an elliptical shoal show good concurrence with the corresponding analytical solutions and experimental data.     

Adjustment of Wind Waves to Sudden Changes of Wind Speed

An experiment was conducted in a small wind-wave facility at the Ocean Engineering Laboratory, California, to address the following question: when the wind speed changes rapidly, how quickly and in what manner do the short wind waves respond? To answer this question we have produced a very rapid change in wind speed between U _low (4.6 m s^?1) and U _high (7.1 m s^?1). Water surface elevation and air turbulence were monitored up to a fetch of 5.5 m. The cycle of increasing and decreasing wind speed was repeated 20 times to assure statistical accuracy in the measurement by taking an ensemble mean. In this way, we were able to study in detail the processes by which the young laboratory wind waves adjust to wind speed perturbations. We found that the wind-wave response occurs over two time scales determined by local equilibrium adjustment and fetch adjustment, Δt ₁/T = O(10) and Δt ₂/T = O(100), respectively, in the current tank. The steady state is characterized by a constant non-dimensional wave height (H/gT ² or equivalently, the wave steepness for linear gravity waves) depending on wind speed. This equilibrium state was found in our non-steady experiments to apply at all fetches, even during the long transition to steady state, but only after a short initial relaxation Δt ₁/T of O(10) following a sudden change in wind speed. The complete transition to the new steady state takes much longer, Δt ₂/T of O(100) at the largest fetch, during which time energy propagates over the entire fetch along the rays (dx/dt = c _g) and grows under the influence of wind pumping. At the same time, frequency downshifts. Although the current study is limited in scale variations, we believe that the suggestion that the two adjustment time scales are related to local equilibrium adjustment and fetch adjustment is also applicable to the ocean.     

波浪水槽中非线性浅水波传播特性与模拟

通过建立解析解、进行数值模拟和物理实验，研究了波浪水槽中非线性浅水波浪传播特性，给出了数值模拟中对应造波板做正弦运动的二阶入射边界条件。数值模拟采用高阶Boussinesq方程。实验结果、数值结果和解析解进行对比，并讨论了解析解的适用范围、高次谐波的产生及三波相互作用问题。     

A new approximation for ocean waves propagating over a beach with variable depth

In this paper, the phenomenon of ocean waves propagating over a beach with variable water depth is re-examined. Based on the assumption of shallow water, a linearised shallow water equation is solved with an arbitrary beach profile. These irregular beach profiles form a set of partial differential equation with variable coefficient as the governing equation, which is the main obstacle in obtaining analytical solutions. In this paper, two families of beach profile are used as examples. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the influence of the beach profiles on the water surface elevation (η) and velocities (u).     

Doppler-shift approximations of encountered wave statistics

In this paper the joint density of waveheight and half-wavelength is considered for waves observed at a fixed time point and encountering waves that are overtaking a ship from behind. The densities for these two cases are related by a Doppler shift, expressed in terms of the relative velocity of the waves and the ship. Based on this observation, an approximation of the encountered density is proposed. This approximation is then investigated for a Gaussian sea having a Pierson–Moskowitz spectrum.     

Offshore Design Waves for Dayaowan Port Area of Dalian Port

This paper introduces the calculating procedure of the offshore design waves for the Dayaowan port area of Dalian Port. Some suggestions are proposed about the conventional calculating methods with measured waves data.     

Internal generation of waves on an arc in a rectangular grid system

This paper presents a technique to generate waves at oblique angles in finite difference numerical models in a rectangular grid system by using internal generation technique [Lee, C., Suh, K.D., 1998. Internal generation of waves for time-dependent mild-slope equations. Coast. Eng. 34, 35–57.] along an arc-shaped line source. Tests were made for four different types of wave generation layouts. Quantitative experiments were conducted under the following conditions: the propagation of waves on a flat bottom, the refraction and shoaling of waves on a planar slope, and the diffraction of waves to a semi-infinite breakwater. Numerical experiments were conducted using the extended mild-slope equations of Suh et al. [Suh, K.D., Lee, C., Park, W.S., 1997. Time-dependent equations for wave propagation on rapidly varying topography. Coast. Eng. 32, 91–117.]. The fourth layout type consisting of two parallel lines connected to a semicircle showed the best solutions, especially for a small grid size. This technique is useful for the numerical simulation of irregular waves with broad-banded directional spectrum using conventional spectral wave models for the reasonable estimation of bottom friction and wave-breaking.     

Probability distribution of random wave–current forces

Based on the second-order solutions obtained for the three-dimensional weakly nonlinear random waves propagating over a steady uniform current in finite water depth, the joint statistical distribution of the velocity and acceleration of the fluid particle in the current direction is derived using the characteristic function expansion method. From the joint distribution and the Morison equation, the theoretical distributions of drag forces, inertia forces and total random forces caused by waves propagating over a steady uniform current are determined. The distribution of inertia forces is Gaussian as that derived using the linear wave model, whereas the distributions of drag forces and total random forces deviate slightly from those derived utilizing the linear wave model. The distributions presented can be determined by the wave number spectrum of ocean waves, current speed and the second order wave–wave and wave–current interactions. As an illustrative example, for fully developed deep ocean waves, the parameters appeared in the distributions near still water level are calculated for various wind speeds and current speeds by using Donelan–Pierson–Banner spectrum and the effects of the current and the nonlinearity of ocean waves on the distribution are studied.