wind and density driven flow along the texas-louisiana continental shelf
DESCRIPTION
Wind and density driven flow along the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf. Rob Hetland Zhaoru Zhang Martino Marta-Almeida Xiaoqian Zhang. The Gulf of Mexico has a number of environmental problems:. Oil spills. And the list goes on. Harmful algal blooms. NASA MODIS May 24, 2010. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Wind and density driven flow along the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf
Rob Hetland
Zhaoru ZhangMartino Marta-AlmeidaXiaoqian Zhang
The Gulf of Mexico has a number of environmental problems:
Karenia brevisPhoto credit: Florida Fish and Photo credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation CommissionWildlife Conservation Commission
NASA MODISMay 24, 2010
Harmfulalgal blooms
Oil spills
Bottom hypoxia
LUMCON - July 24-27, 2012
And the listgoes on....
Series of Models:
Wind-driven surface current predictions
for entire gulf – focused on TX shelf
Louisiana shelf wind/buoyancy driven flow
TX/LA shelf wind/buoyancy driven flow
NEXT TALK
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Animation courtesy Chris Barker (NOAA R&R)Surface currents provided by Rob Hetland and Steve Baum, TAMUFunding by the Texas General
Land Office TABS program
B
D
F
J
K
N
R
V
W
~3 hr lag
~12 hr lag
Four examples of non-summer convergent events
Wind Currents
No river case
Wind
Obs.
Model
20092006 10 year mean
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Climatological winds over the Texas-Louisiana shelf
Non-summer mean
Summer mean
Cho et al. (JGR, 1998)
Seasonal surface currents from LATEX moorings
JFM mean density cross-section
JFM mean along-shore currents
Thermal wind balance currents
u|z=h=0
Along-shore currents are nearly in thermal-wind balance
Meade et al. (1995)USGS Circular 1133
Low flow year
Medium flow year
High flow year
Every third grid point shown
HYCOM IASNFS (subset) NGOM
Parent models Nested modelsCLMDataset
Model salinity skill
Red = good (within 10% of max skill)
where
Perturbed simulations(±5% wind and rivers)
Noise at a point on the shelf
Domain average noise
Conclusions:
Nesting improves model skill, but it does not appear to matter which model is used*.
Although there is significant unpredictable, small-scale eddies at the submesoscale, the large scale plume structure is reproducible in a model without data assimilation.
*For salinity, anyways...