Energetics of Estuarine and Coastal Flow

该项目将对沿海和河口环流进行一些理论和数值分析，重点是机械能收支。机械能（潜在的和动能）形成了一个强大的概念整合工具之间的大气，潮汐和河流迫使沿海流，并由此产生的垂直通量（翻转环流和湍流混合）。然而，我们目前的理解的能量收支的功能是严重限制在沿海和河口流的不规则域，开放的边界，和高度可变的强迫（因此缺乏一个稳定的状态）的综合影响。这项工作将建立在PI最近对河口以及华盛顿和俄勒冈州大陆架能源预算的研究基础上。这将导致一个大大改善的理论理解如何沿海涌升流和河口交换流的工作，以及如何敏感，他们可能是强迫条件的变化。模拟将在两个理想化的领域和现实的后报的WA/OR架，包括哥伦比亚河和普吉特湾。更广泛的影响：这项工作的结果将有利于沿海和河口物理界提供（一）更好的理论理解的能源预算，和（二）改进的数值工具，用于与ROMS的能源分析。这项研究还将增加我们对沿海上升流的了解，以及对大陆架和河口系统之间的联系的了解，从而增加对依赖于这些系统的生态系统的了解。这项工作将培养一名新的沿海和河口物理海洋学研究生。它将支持计算基础设施，该基础设施被UW海洋学院的许多学生用作他们研究的一个重要方面。它还将支持为期5周的暑期学校。

This project will conduct a number of theoretical and numerical analyses of coastal and estuarine circulation focused on the mechanical energy budget. Mechanical energy (potential and kinetic) forms a powerful conceptual integrating tool between atmospheric, tidal, and river forcing of coastal flows, and the resulting vertical fluxes (both by overturning circulation and by turbulent mixing). However, our current understanding of the functioning of the energy budget is severely limited in coastal and estuarine flows by the combined effects of irregular domains, open boundaries, and highly variable forcing (and hence the lack of a steady state). The work will build on the PI's recent work on energy budgets in estuaries and on the Washington and Oregon continental shelf. This will lead to a greatly improved theoretical understanding of how coastal upwelling and the estuarine exchange flow work, and how sensitive they may be to changes in forcing conditions. Simulations will be done in both idealized domains and for realistic hindcasts of the WA/OR shelf including the Columbia River and Puget Sound. Broader Impacts: The results of this work will be of benefit to the coastal and estuarine physics community by providing (i) a better theoretical understanding of energy budgets, and (ii) improved numerical tools to use with ROMS for energy analysis. The research will also increase our understanding of coastal upwelling, and of the linkages between shelf and estuarine systems, and hence the ecosystems which rely on these. This work will train a new graduate student in coastal and estuarine physical oceanography. It will support computational infrastructure that is used by many students at the UW School of Oceanography as a critical aspect of their research. It will also support a 5-week summer school.