The propagation of incident coastal-trapped waves in the Gulf of California is investigated using a hydrostatic
primitive equation model. The behavior of idealized incident wave disturbances with different amplitudes and
time scales is examined. The incident wave disturbances propagate northward up-gulf along the east side with
no significant change. At...
The effects of wind-forced upwelling and downwelling on the continental shelf off Duck, North Carolina, are studied through experiments with a two-dimensional numerical primitive equation model. Moored and shipboard measurements obtained during August–November 1994 as part of the Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) Inner Shelf Study (ISS) are used for model–data...
A two-dimensional, frictionless, nonlinear model of coastal upwelling is reexamined. The model has been solved previously at steady state and as an initial-value problem. The previous solution to the initial-value problem is inconsistent with the steady-state solution. A new solution to the spinup problem is presented that approaches the existing...
The effect of bottom friction on the subinertial frequency motion of stratified shelf flow fields is studied in a two-layer ƒ-plane model with idealized shelf and slope bottom topography. Coastal-trapped fire waves and motion forced by the alongshore component of the wind stress at the coast are considered. Vertical turbulent-diffusion...
An analysis is presented of low-frequency (<0.4 cpd) fluctuations in currents, temperature and tide gage data collected during the March-September 1976 segment of the CUEA JOINT-II experiment off the coast of Peru. The observations were made near 15°S, a region of particularly strong and persistent coastal upwelling. Conclusions about the...
The nonlinear dynamics of unstable alongshore currents in the nearshore
surf zone over variable barred beach topography are studied using numerical
experiments. These experiments extend the recent studies of Allen et al. [1996]
and Slnn et al. [1998], which utilized alongshore uniform beach topographies by
including sinusoidal alongshore variation to...
An idealized, linear model of the coastal ocean is used to assess the domain of influence of surface type data, in particular how much information such data contain about the ocean state at depth and how such information may be retrieved. The ultimate objective is to assess the feasibility of...
An approximate model for small Rossby number ϵ that is close to the balance equations (BE) but that is based on approximate momentum equations is formulated for a rotating, continuously stratified fluid governed by the hydrostatic, Boussinesq, inviscid, adiabatic primitive equations with spatially variable Coriolis parameter. This model, referred to...
A two-layer model is used to study the properties of free coastal trapped waves which propagate over an idealized continental shelf and continental slope bottom topography. With both stratification and depth variations that are typical of continental shelf and slope regions, barotropic shelf waves and baroclinic internal Kelvin waves axe...
This study examines how coastal banks influence wind-driven circulation along stratified continental shelves. Numerical experiments are conducted for idealized symmetric banks; the standard bank (200 km long and 50 km wide) has dimensions similar to the Heceta Bank complex along the Oregon shelf. Model runs are forced with 10 days...
This study investigates wind-driven circulation in the vicinity of the Heceta Bank complex along the Oregon shelf. Numerical experiments forced with steady winds (0.1 Pa) are conducted; upwelling and downwelling cases are compared. The asymmetric bank bathymetry is the only configurational difference from the symmetric bank runs analyzed in Part...
Internal tides on the continental shelf can be intermittent as a result of changing hydrographic conditions
associated with wind-driven upwelling. In turn, the internal tide can affect transports associated with upwelling.
To study these processes, simulations in an idealized, alongshore uniform setup are performed utilizing
the hydrostatic Regional Ocean Modeling...
The effects of alongshore variations in bottom topography and coastline on the wind-stress-forced barotropic motion over a continental shelf and slope are studied. Perturbation methods are used to obtain solutions for forced and free continental shelf waves on an idealized continental shelf and slope with small-amplitude alongshore variations in topography....
Several diagnoses of three-dimensional circulation, using density and velocity data from a high-resolution, upper-ocean SeaSoar and acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) survey of a cyclonic jet meander and adjacent cyclonic eddy containing high Rossby number flow, are compared. The Q-vector form of the quasigeostrophic omega equation, two omega equations derived...
Time-dependent downwelling on the Oregon continental shelf is studied with a two-dimensional approximation, that is, spatial variations across shelf and with depth, using the Blumberg-Mellor, finite-difference, stratified, hydrostatic, primitive equation model. The time-dependent response of a coastal ocean at rest to constant, downwelling-favorable wind stress is examined. Topography and stratification...
The dynamics of the coastal transition zone off Northern California during late May and early June 1987 art
examined through assimilation modeling studies. A regional baroclinic quasi-geostrophic model is driven by the
data through initial and boundary conditions. These initial and boundary conditions are specified by objective
analysis of hydrographic...
A primitive equation model is used to study the finite-amplitude evolution of instabilities associated with the coastal upwelling front. Simulations of increasing complexity are examined that represent idealizations of summer conditions off the Oregon coast, including cases with steady and with time-variable wind in a domain with alongshore-uniform bathymetry and...
Hourly observations of coastal sea level at stations from Peru to British Columbia are analyzed for low-frequency content. A space-time contour plot of sea level, from four years of data during the 1971–75 period, shows the meridional structure of the seasonal cycle and interannual variability associated with the 1972–73 El...
Intermediate models contain physics between that in the primitive equations and that in the quasigeostrophic equations and are capable of representing subinertial frequency motion over O(1) topographic variations typical of the continental slope while filtering out high-frequency gravity-inertial waves. We present here a formulation for stratified flow of a set...
Along the west Coast of North America, the response of sea level to fluctuations in alongshore wind stress at large alongshore scales (> 1000 km) accounted for a substantial faction of the total sea level variance during summer 1973. Space-time contour plots of sea level and alongshore stress show that...