Short-term beach–dune sand budgets on the north sea coast of France: Sand supply from shoreface to dunes, and the role of wind and fetch

Three experimental plots, covering the transition from the upper beach to the dune, on the North Sea coast of France were monitored at various intervals over a period of 18–24 months via high resolution terrain surveys in order to determine inter-site sand budget variability, as well as patterns and processes involved in sand exchanges between the upper beach and dune. The wind regime consists of a fairly balanced mix of moderate (80% of winds are below 8 m/s) onshore, offshore and shore-parallel winds. Sustained dune accretion over several years depends on the periodic local onshore welding of shoreface tidal banks that have developed in the storm- and tide-dominated setting of the southern North Sea. The only site where this has occurred in the recent past is Calais, where bank welding has created a wide accreting upper beach sand flat. At this site, significant sand supply from the subtidal sand bank reservoir to the upper beach flat occurred only once over the 18-month survey following a major storm. The bulk of the sand deposited over this large flat is not directly integrated into the adjacent embryo dunes by onshore winds but is progressively reworked in situ into developing dunes or transported alongshore by the balanced wind regime, thus resulting in alongshore stretching of the embryo dune system. The Leffrinckoucke site near Belgium shows moderate beach–dune mobility and accretion, while the Wissant site exhibits significant upper beach bedform mobility controlled by strong longshore currents that result in large beach budget fluctuations with little net budget change, to the detriment of the adjacent dunes. Accretion at these two sites, which are representative of the rest of the North Sea coast of France, is presently constrained by the absence of a shore-attached sand bank supply reservoir, while upper beach–dune sand exchanges are further limited by the narrow wave-affected upper beach, the intertidal morphology of bars and troughs which segments the aeolian fetch, and the moderate wind energy conditions. The balanced wind regime limits net sand mobilisation in favour of either the beach or the dune, and may explain the relatively narrow longshore morphology of the dune ridges bounding this coast.     

A Simple Parameterisation for Flux Footprint Predictions

Flux footprint functions estimate the location and relative importance of passive scalar sources influencing flux measurements at a given receptor height. These footprint estimates strongly vary in size, depending on receptor height, atmospheric stability, and surface roughness. Reliable footprint calculations from, e.g., Lagrangian stochastic models or large-eddy simulations are computationally expensive and cannot readily be computed for long-term observational programs. To facilitate more accessible footprint estimates, a scaling procedure is introduced for flux footprint functions over a range of stratifications from convective to stable, and receptor heights ranging from near the surface to the middle of the boundary layer. It is shown that, when applying this scaling procedure, footprint estimates collapse to an ensemble of similar curves. A simple parameterisation for the scaled footprint estimates is presented. This parameterisation accounts for the influence of the roughness length on the footprint and allows for a quick but precise algebraic footprint estimation.     

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.     

Fetch and Footprint of Turbulent Fluxes over Vegetative Stands with Elevated Sources

In this study, Raupach's localized near-field (LNF)theory is combined with appropriate parameterizations ofthe turbulence inside a canopy to investigate how airstability and source configuration influence the fluxfootprint and flux adjustment with fetch in theroughness sublayer. The model equations are solvednumerically. The flux footprint from the LNF predictionis in general more contracted than the prediction basedon the inertial sublayer similarity functions. Invery unstable conditions, the near-field effect causes thefootprint of the elevated canopy source to locatefurther upwind than that of the ground-level source, andthe combined footprint can become negative in situationswhere the two sources are of opposite sign. The fluxfootprint and flux adjustment with fetch in theroughness sublayer are sensitive to source configurationand the parameters specifying wind speed and theLagrangian time scale inside the canopy.     

锋面通过台湾海峡时引起的快速成长波高推算

每年冬季因中国北方冷空气前缘东移出海南下而形成的锋面是造成台湾海峡内恶劣海况的原因之一，锋面的到临常引发快速增高的波浪，这种海况是目前作业化数值预报模式在操作上不易反映的。经验证明根据元素波模式推衍所得的面积风域法推算波浪，适合于推导季风期间海况的一种方法。本文将锋面期间风域是移动的特性结合面积风域理论，作为推算锋面抵达时推算波高的方法。本文提出加权风场内插法计算各时刻各网格点的风速，使得面积风域理论简化为在网格点上的离散计算。文中根据锋面期间实际观测数据计算波能传播速率与风能传播系数等参数，经由案例分析的结果显示这个离散化面积风域法可以合理地推算锋面期间快速成长的波高。     

Spatial Variation of Sea-Spray Fluxes over a Mediterranean Coastal Zone Using a Sea-State Model

We first deal with sea-spray flux estimates for short fetch conditions in coastal Mediterranean areas. To this end, a sea-state dependent model for the whitecap fraction was included in three different formulations for the sea-spray source function. A comparison with the sea-spray fluxes, calculated on the basis of aerosol size distributions measured at the island of Porquerolles located south off the French Riviera, evaluates the predictions of different whitecap dependant flux formulations. Then we deal with the spatial distribution of the whitecap fraction and the sea-spray fluxes in the study area. To achieve this, a whitecap dependant flux formulation was forced by a wave numerical model that was implemented in the study area. Experimental results on wave conditions have been used to adjust the model in the Mediterranean coastal area. Numerical simulations of wave and whitecap coverage have been carried out during typical regional wind events, and they show a nonhomogeneous distribution of the sea-surface production over the northern Mediterranean as a consequence of the spatial variation of the sea state. In particular, we note the occurrence of a narrow band of high sea-surface production following the northern coast and along the east part of the Gulf of Lions.     

Directional measurements of wave growth in a short and narrow fetch geometry

The growth of young waves along a narrow bay and their directional spectra were studied. The fetch geometry was found to affect the shape of the spectrum already when the waves were young. When compared to the growth from a straight shoreline, the dimensionless energy was reduced, but the change in dimensionless peak frequency was smaller. The behaviour of the young waves was similar to that of the mature waves but the differences between narrow and broad fetch geometries were smaller, which suggests that due to a stronger nonlinear transfer the young waves are less sensitive to the fetch geometry. The directional spectrum of the young waves in the narrow fetch geometry was narrower at all energy containing frequencies than the spectra from broad fetch geometry, which further supports the conclusion that the shape of the spectrum is not independent of the fetch geometry.     

A Review of: “Geographic Information Systems for Geoscientists—Modelling with GIS”

Distances from points to closest shorelines in a given direction are used, for example, in some models for estimating wave exposure. Such distances, also called fetch lengths, can be determined using standard geographic information systems. However, performance may be a problem if these distances are required for a great number of study points. Two new algorithms for determining fetch lengths for study points in the same directions are presented in this paper. It is assumed that the two‐dimensional map is stored in vector format, i.e. shorelines of islands and mainland are stored as polygons. The first algorithm works on a set of undirected line segments derived from the shoreline polygons. The other works on a raster representation of the map. The algorithm saves memory by postponing the rasterisation until necessary. Both of the new algorithms have superior efficiency to a previously reported algorithm when the number of study points is large.     

An Analytical Footprint Model For Non-Neutral Stratification

We propose an analytical model for the so-called footprint of scalar fluxes in the atmospheric boundary layer. It is the generalization of formulations already given in the literature, which allows to account for thermal stability. Our model is only marginally more complicated than these, and it is therefore simple enough to be applicable for a routine footprint analysis within long-term measurements. The mathematical framework of our model is a stationary gradient diffusion formulation with height-independent crosswind dispersion. It uses the solution of the resulting two-dimensional advection – diffusion equation for power law profiles of the mean wind velocity and the eddy diffusivity. To find the adjoint Monin–Obukhov similarity profile, we propose two different approaches, a purely analytical one and a simplenumerical error minimalization.     

黄土高原复杂地形上高质量湍流通量数据获取方法

利用兰州大学半干旱气候与环境观测站(Semi-Arid Climate and Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University,SACOL)湍流观测资料,分析了二次坐标旋转(double rotation,DR)、平面拟合(planar fit,PF)和分风区平面拟合(fetch planar fit,FPF)在复杂地形上的适用性,总结出一套适用于SACOL的总体湍流特征参数化方案.经过超声虚温订正、坐标旋转、空气密度脉动订正以及平稳性检验、总体湍流特征检验、总体质量分级处理,摩擦速度(u*)、感热通量、潜热通量、CO_2通量高质量数据所占比例分别为45%~62%、66%~68%、62%~65%、52%~54%.采用DR得到的高质量数据比例与采用PF相比,u*提高了17%,后三种通量略降低2%~3%.PF和FPF两种结果的差别主要体现在u*上,只考虑主导风向数据DR得到的u*质量仍最好.综合兼顾数据质量和计算工作量,在复杂地形上处理湍流观测资料的最优坐标旋转方法是DR.