Mathematical Analysis of Continental Shelf Waves on a Curved Coast
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Mathematics
Abstract
Measurements of velocity fields along the coasts of oceans throughout the world show that much of the fluid energy is contained in motions with periods of a few days or longer. The comparison of measurements at different places along the same coast show that in general these low-frequency disturbances propagate along coasts with shallow water to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. These waves have come to be known as continental shelf waves (CSWs). The purpose of the present proposal is to determine, using a selection of models of increasing complexity, the form of non-propagating, trapped CSWs along curved coasts. The existence of such non-propagating modes is significant as they would tend to be forced by atmospheric weather systems, which have similar periods of a few days, similar horizontal extent, and a reasonably broad spectrum in space and time. Areas where such modes were trapped would thus appear to be likely to show higher than normal energy in the low frequency horizontal velocity field.
Organisations
Publications
Crosby A
(2013)
Deformation of vortex patches by boundaries
in Physics of Fluids
G Kaoullas
(2010)
SHELFWAVES
Johnson E
(2006)
Existence of Eigenvalues of a Linear Operator Pencil in a Curved Waveguide---Localized Shelf Waves on a Curved Coast
in SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis
Johnson E
(2010)
Bay-trapped low-frequency oscillations in lakes
in Geophysical & Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics
Johnson E
(2012)
Trapped modes in coastal waveguides
in Wave Motion
Johnson E
(2011)
Spectral methods for coastal-trapped waves
in Continental Shelf Research
Johnson E
(2013)
Geostrophic adjustment in a closed basin with islands
in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Johnson E
(2014)
Meanders and Eddies from Topographic Transformation of Coastal-Trapped Waves
in Journal of Physical Oceanography
Kaoullas G
(2010)
Fast accurate computation of shelf waves for arbitrary depth profiles
in Continental Shelf Research
Kaoullas G
(2010)
Geographically localised shelf waves on curved coasts
in Continental Shelf Research
Title | Spectral methods for baroclinic coastal-trapped waves |
Description | Efficient and accurate computation of free baroclinic coastal-trapped waves, using pseudospectral methods, over general depth profiles for arbitrary vertical density profiles in horizontally semi-infinite domains. The methods are described in full in the accompanying paper: E.R. Johnson, J.T. Rodney, Spectral methods for coastal-trapped waves, Continental Shelf Research, 31 (14) doi:10.1016/j.csr.2011.06.009 |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2011 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | Used as basis of a number of papers |
URL | http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/32561-spectral-methods-for-ctws |
Title | barotropic shelf waves |
Description | Computes barotropic, non-divergent, continental shelf wave modes above general shelf profiles in MATLAB |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2010 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | Used as basis of a number of papers |
URL | http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/26502-shelfwaves |