A GPU accelerated Boussinesq-type model for coastal waves

This study presents an efficient Boussinesq-type wave model accelerated by a single Graphics Processing Unit(GPU).The model uses the hybrid finite volume and finite difference method to solve weakly dispersive and nonlinear Boussinesq equations in the horizontal plane,enabling the model to have the shock-capturing ability to deal with breaking waves and moving shoreline properly.The code is written in CUDA C.To achieve better performance,the model uses cyclic reduction technique to solve massive tridiagonal linear systems and overlapped tiling/shared memory to reduce global memory access and enhance data reuse.Four numerical tests are conducted to validate the GPU implementation.The performance of the GPU model is evaluated by running a series of numerical simulations on two GPU platforms with different hardware configurations.Compared with the CPU version,the maximum speedup ratios for single-precision and double-precision calculations are 55.56 and 32.57,respectively.

Numerical simulation of sediment transport in coastal waves and wave-induced currents

Prediction of coastal sediment transport is of particularly importance for analyzing coast erosion accurately and solving the corresponding coast protection engineering problems.The present study provided a numerical scheme for sediment transport in coastal waves and wave-induced currents.In the scheme,the sand transport model was implemented with wave refraction-diffraction model and near-shore current model.Coastal water wave was simulated by using the parabolic mild-slope equation in which wave refraction,diffraction and breaking effects are considered.Wave-induced current was simulated by using the nonlinear shallow water equations in which wave provides radiation stresses for driving current.Then,sediment transport in waves and wave-induced currents was simulated by using the two-dimensional suspended sediment transport equations for suspended sediment and the bed-load transport equation for bed load.The numerical scheme was validated by experiment results from the Large-scale Sediment Transport Facility at the US Army Corps of Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg.The numerical results showed that the present scheme is an effective tool for modeling coastal sediment transport in waves and near-shore currents.

Cross-shelf transport induced by coastal trapped waves along the coast of East China Sea

Cross-shelf transport is important due to its role in the transport of nutrients, larvae, sediments, and pollutants. The role of coastal trapped waves(CTWs) and their contribution to the cross-shelf transport is presently unknown. The impact of wind-driven CTWs on the structure of the cross-shelf currents and transport is investigated in the East China Sea(ECS) starting from theory. The cross-shelf currents are divided into four terms: the geostrophic balance(GB) term, the second-order wave(SOW) term, the bottom friction(BF) term and Ekman(EK) term, as well as three modes: the Kelvin wave(KW) mode, the first shelf wave(SW1) mode and the second shelf wave(SW2) mode. Comparison among these decompositions shows that(1) for the four terms, the effect of the GB and EK terms is continual, while that of the BF term is confi ned to 60–240 km of fshore, and the contribution of the SOW term can be ignored;(2) for the three modes, the KW and SW1 modes are dominant in cross-shelf transport. The results show that the total cross-shelf transport travels onshore under idealized wind stress on the order of 10^(-1), and it increases along the cross-shelf direction and peaks about-0.73 Sv at the continental shelf margin. With the increase of linear bottom friction coeffi cient, the cross-shelf transport declines with distance with the slope becoming more uniform.

Propagation Mechanisms of Incident Tsunami Wave in Jiangsu Coastal Area,Caused by Eastern Japan Earthquake on March 11,2011

At 13：46 on March 11, 2011（Beijing time）, an earthquake of Mw=9.0 occurred in Japan. By comparing the tsunami data from Guanhekou marine station with other tsunami wave observation gathered from southeast coastal area of China, it was evident that, only in Guanhekou, the position of the maximum wave height appeared in the middle part rather than in the front of the tsunami wave train. A numerical model of tsunami propagation based on 2-D nonlinear shallow water equations was built to study the impact range and main causes of the special tsunami waveform discovered in Jiangsu coastal area. The results showed that nearly three-quarters of the Jiangsu coastal area, mainly comprised the part north of the radial sand ridges, reached its maximum tsunami wave height in the middle part of the wave train. The main cause of the special waveform was the special underwater topography condition of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea area, which influenced the tsunami propagation and waveform significantly. Although land boundary reflection brought an effect on the position of the maximum wave height to a certain extent, as the limits of the incident waveform and distances between the observation points and shore, it was not the dominant influence factor of the special waveform. Coriolis force＇s impact on the tsunami waves was so weak that it was not the main cause for the special phenomenon in Jiangsu coastal area. The study reminds us that the most destructive wave might not appear in the first one in tsunami wave train.

Responses of the Zhe-Min coastal current adjacent to Pingtan Island to the wintertime monsoon relaxation in 2006 and its mechanism

In conjunction with synchronous remotely sensed winds and sea surface temperature （SST）, the spatiotemporal features of the Zhe-Min coastal current （ZMCC）, especially responses of the ZMCC adjacent to Pingtan Island （PT） to the wintertime mon- soon relaxation in 2006 and corresponding mechanism are investigated based on the field observations. In situ data are ac- quired from Conductivity-Temperature-Depth （CTD） cruise and Bottom-Mounted Moorings （BMM）, which are conducted during a comprehensive survey for the Chinese Offshore Investigation and Assessment Project in winter 2006. It is revealed that the ZMCC is well mixed vertically in winter 2006. The ZMCC （〈14℃） recedes during the relaxation of the wintertime monsoon and is accompanied by the enhanced northward shift of the warm, saline Taiwan Strait Mixed Water （TSMW, higher than 14~C and is constituted by the Taiwan Strait Warm Water and the Kuroshio Branch Water）. And greatly enhanced south- ward intrusion of the ZMCC can be detected when the wintertime monsoon restores. Correspondingly, the thermal interface bounded by the ZMCC and the TSMW moves in the northwest/southeast direction, leading to periodic warm/cold reversals of the near-seabed temperature adjacent to the PT. By EOF （Empirical Orthogonal Function） analysis of the large-scale wind fields and wavelet power spectrum analysis of the water level, ocean current and the near-seabed temperature, responses of the ZMCC off the PT to wintertime monsoon relaxation are suggested to be attributed mainly to the southward propagating coast- ally trapped waves triggered by the impeding atmospheric fronts. As a result, ocean current and near-seabed temperature demonstrate significant quasi-5 d and quasi-10 d subtidal oscillations. By contrast, the onshore/offshore water accumulation resulted from Ekman advection driven by the local winds has minor contributions.