A Coastal Ocean Model of Semi-Implicit Finite Volume Unstructured Grid

A two-dimensional coastal ocean model based on unstructured C-grid is built, in which the momentum equation is discretized on the faces of each cell, and the continuity equation is discretized on the cell. The model is discretized by semi-implicit finite volume method, in that the free surface is semi-implicit and the bottom friction is implicit, thereby removing stability limitations associated with the surface gravity wave and friction. The remaining terms in the momentum equations are discretized explicitly by integral finite volume method and second-order Adams-Bashforth method. Tidal flow in the polar quadrant with known analytic solution is employed to test the proposed model. Finally, the performance of the present model to simulate tidal flow in a geometrically complex domain is examined by simulation of tidal currents in the Pearl River Estuary.

Statistical Downscaling of IPCC Sea Surface Wind and Wind Energy Predictions for U.S. East Coastal Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea

A multivariate statistical downscaling method is developed to produce regional, high-resolution, coastal surface wind fields based on the IPCC global model predictions for the U.S. east coastal ocean, the Gulf of Mexico(GOM), and the Caribbean Sea. The statistical relationship is built upon linear regressions between the empirical orthogonal function(EOF) spaces of a cross- calibrated, multi-platform, multi-instrument ocean surface wind velocity dataset(predictand) and the global NCEP wind reanalysis(predictor) over a 10 year period from 2000 to 2009. The statistical relationship is validated before applications and its effectiveness is confirmed by the good agreement between downscaled wind fields based on the NCEP reanalysis and in-situ surface wind measured at 16 National Data Buoy Center(NDBC) buoys in the U.S. east coastal ocean and the GOM during 1992–1999. The predictand-predictor relationship is applied to IPCC GFDL model output(2.0?×2.5?) of downscaled coastal wind at 0.25?×0.25? resolution. The temporal and spatial variability of future predicted wind speeds and wind energy potential over the study region are further quantified. It is shown that wind speed and power would significantly be reduced in the high CO_2 climate scenario offshore of the mid-Atlantic and northeast U.S., with the speed falling to one quarter of its original value.

Advances in coastal ocean boundary layer detection technology and equipment in China

Accurate and comprehensive knowledge of the atmospheric environment and its evolution within the coastal ocean boundary layer are necessary for understanding the sources,chemical mechanisms,and transport processes of air pollution in land,sea,and atmosphere.We present an overview of coastal ocean boundary layer detection technology and equipment in China and summarize the progress and main achievements in recent years.China has developed a series of coastal ocean boundary layer detection technologies,including Light Detection and Ranging(LIDAR),turbulent exchange analyzer,air-sea flux analyzer,stereoscopic remote sensing of air pollutants,and oceanic aerosol detection equipment to address the technical bottleneck caused by harsh environmental conditions in coastal ocean regions.Advances in these technologies and equipment have provided scientific assistance for addressing air pollution issues and understanding land-sea-atmosphere interactions over coastal ocean regions in China.In the future,routine atmospheric observations should cover the coastal ocean boundary layer of China.

A GPU accelerated finite volume coastal ocean model

With the unstructured grid, the Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model（FVCOM） is converted from its original FORTRAN code to a Compute Unified Device Architecture（CUDA） C code, and optimized on the Graphic Processor Unit（GPU）. The proposed GPU-FVCOM is tested against analytical solutions for two standard cases in a rectangular basin, a tide induced flow and a wind induced circulation. It is then applied to the Ningbo＇s coastal water area to simulate the tidal motion and analyze the flow field and the vertical tide velocity structure. The simulation results agree with the measured data quite well. The accelerated performance of the proposed 3-D model reaches 30 times of that of a single thread program, and the GPU-FVCOM implemented on a Tesla k20 device is faster than on a workstation with 20 CPU cores, which shows that the GPU-FVCOM is efficient for solving large scale sea area and high resolution engineering problems.

Evaluation of SIFOM-FVCOM system for high-fidelity simulation of small-scale coastal ocean flows

This paper evaluates the SIFOM-FVCOM system recently developed by the authors to simulate multiphysics coastal ocean flow phenomena, especially those at small scales. First, its formulation for buoyancy is examined with regard to solution accu- racy and computational efficiency. Then, the system is used to track particles in circulations in the Jamaica Bay, demonstrating that large-scale patterns of trajectories of fluid particles are sensitive to small-scales flows from which they are released. Finally, a simulation is presented to illustrate the SIFOM-FVCOM system＇s capability, which is beyond the reach of other existing models, to directly and simultaneously model large-scale storm surges as well as small-scale flow structures around bridge piers within the Hudson River during the Hurricane Sandy.

Study on detection of coastal water environment of China by ocean color remote sensing

Coastal water environment is essentially enhanced by ocean color which is basically decided by substances concentration in water such as chlorophyll, suspended material and yellow substance. It is very difficult, even not possible, to detect water color by expensive ship routing, because of its temporal and spatial variety of feature and scales in the very complicated dynamical system of coastal water. With the development of satellite technique in the last 20 a, space sensors can be applied to detect ocean color by measuring the spectra of water leaving radiance.It is proven that ocean color remote sensing is a powerful tool for understanding the process of oceanic biology and physics. Since the 1980s, great attention has been paid to the advanced remote sensing technique in China, especially to development of satellite programs for the coastal water environment. On 7 September 1988, China launched her first polar orbit satellite FY-1A for meteorological and oceanographic application (water color and temperature) and the second satellite FY-1B two years later. In May 1999, China launched her second generation environment satellite FY-1C with higher sensitivies, more channels and stable operation. The special ocean color satellite HY-1 is planned to be in the orbit in 2001, whose main purpose is to detect the coastal water environment of China seas. China is also developing a very advantageous sensor termed as Chinese moderate imaging spectra radiometer (CMODIS) with 91 channels, which will be a good candidate of the third generation satellite FY-3 in 2003. The technical system of ocean color remote sensing was developed by the Second Institute of Oceanography (SIO), State Oceanic Administration (SOA) in 1997. The system included data receiving, processing, distribution, calibration, validation and application units. The Hangzhou Station of SIO, SOA has the capability to receive FY-1 and AVHRR data since 1989. It was also a SeaWiFS scientific research station authorized by NASA,USA to free receive SeaWiFS data from 16 September 1997. In the recent years, the local algorithms of atmospheric correction and inversion of ocean color have been developed for FY-1C and SeaWiFS, to improve the accuracy of the measurement from satellites efficiently. The satellite data are being applied to monitor coastal water environment, such as the spatial distribution of chlorophyll, suspended material and yellow substance, red tide detection and coastal current study. The results show that the ocean color remote sensing has latent capacity in the detection of coastal water environment.In consideration of the update technique progress of ocean color remote sensing and its more important role in the detection of coastal water in the 2000s, some suggestions are set forth, which would be beneficial to the design of a cheaper but practical coastal water detection system for marine environment preservation.

A Regional Ocean Reanalysis System for Coastal Waters of China and Adjacent Seas

A regional ocean reanalysis system for the coastal waters of China and adjacent seas has been developed by the National Marine Data and Information Service（NMDIS）.It produces a dataset package called CORA （China ocean reanalysis）.The regional ocean model used is based on the Princeton Ocean Model with a generalized coordinate system（POMgcs）.The model is parallelized by NMDIS with the addition of the wave breaking and tidal mixing processes into model parameterizations.Data assimilation is a sequential three-dimensional variational（3D-Var） scheme implemented within a multigrid framework.Observations include satellite remote sensing sea surface temperature（SST）,altimetry sea level anomaly（SLA）,and temperature/salinity profiles.The reanalysis fields of sea surface height,temperature,salinity,and currents begin with January 1986 and are currently updated every year. Error statistics and error distributions of temperature,salinity and currents are presented as a primary evaluation of the reanalysis fields using sea level data from tidal gauges,temperature profiles,as well as the trajectories of Argo floats.Some case studies offer the opportunity to verify the evolution of certain local circulations.These evaluations show that the reanalysis data produced provide a good representation of the ocean processes and phenomena in the coastal waters of China and adjacent seas.

Numerical Simulation of the Regional Ocean Circulation in the Coastal Areas of China

The regional ocean circulation in the coastal areas of China (including a part of the western PacificOcean, the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal et al.) is simulated by using the improved Princeton University ocean circulation model (POM). Compared with the modeling results obtained by the large-scaleocean general circulation model (OGCM), the basic ocean circulation features simulated by the regionalocean circulation model al-e in good agreement with that simulated by OGCM and some detailed characteristics such as the regional ocean circulation, sea temperature, salinity and flee sea surface height have alsobeen obtained which are in good accord with the observations. These results indicate that the regional oceancirculation model has good capability to produce the legional ocean circulation characteristics and it can beused to develop coupled legional ocean-atmospheric model systems.

Geomorphology visualization modeling and tidal current virtual reality for coastal ocean

The new technology of geomorphology visualization modeling and virtual reality for tidal current numerical simulation are the important methods utilized in coastal ocean research. In the project of studying the evolutionary trend of radial sand ridges in South Yellow Sea of China, this method becomes the key to reveal the correlation betweenthe seabed topography and the hydrodynamic factor——tidal current. It is proved that using the geomorphology visualization and tidal virtual reality techniques, oceanog-raphers might be able to intuitively discover the interaction pattern of sand ridges and tidal current, predicting the development of sand ridge stability in the future. Furthermore,a prototypic software system——VROcean was designed andimplemented to examine the performance of the new visualization technology on the contrast to traditional methods.

Journal of Ocean University of China(Oceanic and Coastal Sea Research) Article Index to Vol.10, 2011

Article Index to Vol.10, 2011 Number I A FVCOM-Based Unstructured Grid Wave, Current, Sediment Transport Model, I. Model Description and Validation WU Lunyu, CHEN Changsheng, GUO Peifang, SHI Maochong, QI Jianhua, and GE Jianzhong

Relationship between the Guinea Current and the Coastal Upwelling in Northern of Gulf of Guinea

The variability of ocean circulation and sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropical Atlantic, especially in the Gulf of Guinea (GG), defines this region as exceptionally rich from an oceanographic perspective. The Guinea Current (GC), as the major surface current, plays a significant role in marine productivity and coastal upwelling in the GG. This coastal upwelling is known to influence the climate of the surrounding region, primary productivity and local fisheries. Studies on GC variability and its impact on this coastal upwelling have highlighted that the upwelling downstream of Cape Palmas is influenced by GC detachment, topographic variations and advective processes leading to significant vertical mixing. This study aims to analyze the interannual variability of the GC and its impact on coastal upwelling using the Coastal and Regional Ocean COmmunity model (CROCO). The model’s evaluation is conducted using observational data, specifically Geostrophic and EKman Current Observatory (GEKCO) and Ocean Surface Current Analysis (OSCAR) for currents, and Air-sea Fluxes for the global Tropic ocean-description (TROPFLUX) and Optimum Interpolation-Sea Surface Temperature (OI-SST) for temperature. Thus, the model evaluation indicates that it accurately replicates ocean circulation and SST patterns in the tropical Atlantic and the GG. The joint analysis of upwelling indices (surface and intensity) and the position of the GC core allowed us to conclude that the displacement of the GC core does indeed influence the upwelling indices in the northern part of GG. However, other oceanic and atmospheric mechanisms such as vertical diffusion and horizontal advection as proposed by previous studies may also affect the year-by-year variability of coastal upwelling in the northern GG.

Impacts of Coastal SST Variability on the East Asian Summer Monsoon

The impacts of the seasonal and interannual SST variability in the East Asia coastal regions （EACRSST） on the East Asian summer monsoon （EASM） have been examined using a regional climate model （PδRCM9） in this paper. The simulation results show that the correlation between the EACRSST and the EASM is strengthened after the mid-1970s and also the variability of the EACRSST forcing becomes much more important to the EASM interannual variability after the mid-1970s. The impacts of the EACRSST on the summer precipitation over each sub-region in the EASM region become weak gradually from south to north, and the temporal evolution features of the summer precipitation differences over North and Northeast China agree well with those of the index of EASM （IEASM） differences. The mechanism analyses show that different EACRSST forcings result in the differences of sensible and latent heat flux exchanges at the air-sea interface, which alter the heating rate of the atmosphere. The heating rate differences induce low level air temperature differences over East Asia, resulting in the differences of the land-sea thermal contrast （LSTC） which lead to 850 hPa geopotential height changes. When the 850 hPa geopotential height increases over the East Asian continent and decreases over the coast of East China and the adjacent oceans during the weakening period of weakens consequently. On the contrary, the EASM enhances during the strengthening period of the LSTC.

Mapping sea surface velocities in the Changjiang coastal zone with advanced synthetic aperture radar

Range Doppler velocities derived from the Envisat advanced synthetic aperture radar（ASAR） wide swath images are analyzed and assessed against the numerically simulated surface current fields derived from the finite volume coastal ocean model（FVCOM） for the Changjiang Estuary. Comparisons with the FVCOM simulations show that the European Space Agency（ESA） Envisat ASAR based Doppler shift anomaly retrievals have the capability to capture quantitative information of the surface currents in the Changjiang Estuary. The uncertainty analysis of the ASAR range Doppler velocity estimates are discussed with regard to the azimuthal and range bias corrections, radar incidence angles, inaccuracy in the wind field corrections and the presence of rain cells.The corrected range Doppler velocities for the Changjiang Estuary area are highly valuable as they exhibit quantitative expressions related to the multiscale upper layer dynamics and surface current variability around the East China Sea, including the Changjiang Estuary.

Evolution of a coastal upwelling event during summer 2004 in the southern Taiwan Strait

A coastal upwelling event in the southern Taiwan Strait （STWS） was investigated using intensive cruise surveys （four repeated transects in a month） and satellite data in July and early August 2004. The extensive upwelling-associated surface cold water was first observed in early July （-2.0×10a km2） along the STWS coast. Then, the cold surface water reduced in size by -50% with decreased chlorophyll concentrations after 15 days, indicating the weakening of the upwelling event. At the end of July, the cold surface water disappeared. The temporal variations of the surface cold water and the 3-D hydrography around Dongshan Island are thought to be mainly attributed to the weakened upwelling-favorable southwestern wind, the asymmetric spatial structure of the wind field and the intrusion of warm water from the northern South China Sea.

Interaction of an anticyclonic eddy with sea ice in the western Arctic Ocean:an eddy-resolving model study

The dramatic decline of summer sea ice extent and thickness has been witnessed in the western Arctic Ocean in recent decades, which has motivated scientists to search for possible factors driving the sea ice variability. An eddy-resolving, ice-ocean coupled model covering the entire Arctic Ocean is implemented, with focus on the western Arctic Ocean. Special attention is paid to the summer Maskan coastal current （ACC）, which has a high temperature （up to 5℃ or more） in the upper layer due to the solar radiation over the open water at the lower latitude. Downstream of the ACC after Barrow Point, a surface-intensified anticyclonic eddy is frequently generated and propagate towards the Canada Basin during the summer season when sea ice has retreated away from the coast. Such an eddy has a warm core, and its source is high-temperature ACC water. A typical warm-core eddy is traced. It is trapped just below summer sea ice melt water and has a thickness about 60 m. Temperature in the eddy core reaches 2-3℃, and most water inside the eddy has a temperature over 1℃. With a definition of the eddy boundary, an eddy heat is calculated, which can melt 1 600 km2 of 1 m thick sea ice under extreme conditions.

Distribution of Pacific-origin water in the region of the Chukchi Plateau in the Arctic Ocean in the summer of 2003

The upper ocean thermohaline structures in the region of the Chukchi Plateauare analyzed with the hydrographic data collected by the Chinese National Arctic Research Expeditionin the summer of 2003. Three types of the Pacific-origin water were found in the upper ocean,Alaska Coastal Water (ACW), summer Bering Sea Water (sBSW) and winter Bering Sea Water (wBSW) areindicated by two maximums temperature and one minimum temperature, piling up from the upper to thelower respectively. The extreme warm ACW with a maximum temperature of 1.62℃ was found in thesouthwestern Canada Basin at a depth of about 50 m. A pathway of the ACW into the basin from itsadjacent area did not existed in the expedition period. So it is speculated that the extreme warmfeature of the ACW was formed locally in 2003. The relative weak ACW occurred to the east of theChukchi Cap and in the southern Chukchi Abyssal Plain. The latter one might originate from a warmdownwelling that existed in a small canyon at the shelf break of the Chukchi Sea. The sBSW withoutthe ACW was found only at the southwestern flank of the Chukchi Cap. The ACW and the sBSW were notfound in the northernmost station at 81°N,which indicates the north boundary of the upperPacific-origin water in the Canada Basin. The wBSW, which existed in all deep stations, was exactlyuniform at temperature. The difference of the core potential temperature of the wBSW in the deepregions is only 0.08℃.

Suspended sediment concentration mapping based on the MODIS satellite imagery in the East China inland, estuarine, and coastal waters

The purpose of this research is to improve the retrieval accuracy for the suspended sediment concentration(SSC) from in situ and satellite remote sensing measurements in turbid East China estuarine and coastal waters. For this aim, three important tasks are formulated and solved: 1) an estimation of remote-sensing reflectance spectra R_(rs)(λ) after atmospheric correction; 2) an estimation of R_(rs)(λ) from the radiometric signals above the air-water surface; and 3) an estimation of SSC from R_(rs)(λ). Six different models for radiometric R_(rs)(λ) determination and 28 models for SSC versus R_(rs)(λ) are analyzed based on the field observations made in the Changjiang River estuary and its adjacent coastal area. The SSC images based on the above-mentioned analysis are generated for the area.

Ocean color products retrieval and validation around China coast with MODIS

Waters along China coast are very turbid with high concentrations of suspended sediment nearly all the time,especially at the Hangzhou Bay,the Changjiang （Yangtze） River Estuary and the shoal along Jiangsu Province.In these turbid and optically complex waters,the standard MODIS ocean color products tend to have invalid values.Because the water-leaving radiances in the near-infrared （NIR） are significant resulting from the strong scattering of suspended particles,the standard MODIS atmospheric correction algorithm often gets no results or produces significant errors.And because of the complex water optical properties,the OC3 model used in the standard MODIS data processing tends to get extremely high chlorophyll-a （Chl-a） concentrations.In this paper,we present an atmospheric correction approach using MODIS short wave infrared （SWIR） bands based on the fact that water-leaving radiances are negligible in the SWIR region because of the extreme strong absorption of water even in turbid waters.A regional Chl-a concentration estimation model is also constructed for MODIS from in situ data.These algorithms are applied to MODIS Aqua data processing in the China coastal regions.In situ data collected in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea in spring and autumn,2003 are used to validate the performance.Reasonably good results have been obtained.It is noted that water-leaving reflectance in the NIR bands are significant in waters along the China coast with high sediment loadings.The satellite derived and in-situ reflectance spectra can match in the turbid waters along China coast,and there is relatively good linear relationship between satellite derived and in-situ reflectance.The RMSE value of Rrs（λ） is 0.0031 sr ？1 for all the nine ocean color bands （412 to 869 nm）.The satellite-derived Chl-a value is in the reasonable range and the root mean square percentage difference is 46.1%.

Coastal zone and its sustainable development

Coastal zone, a boundary shared by land and occo and the baseline to understand the earth,has become a very important part of earth system science and for global change study. From the viewpoint of society and economy, the coastal zone is the prosperous forefront for social development Butis also gives rise to a series of abuses, leading to destruction of resources and environment Theseproblems have become serious obstacles restricting the sustainability in thes area. Therefore, we mustemphasize on the study of the coastal zone, not ouly on its land part but also its ocean part. In order torealise sustainable development of coastal zone, multi-disciplinery studies and integration of naturalsciences with social sciences are necessary and more attention shoud be focused on monitoring, andplanning of coastal zone by utilizing GIS (geographical information system), satellite geo-observationsystem, GPS (global position system) and global communication network technologies.