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East Frisian Wadden Sea hydrodynamics and wave effects in an unstructured-grid model

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Abstract

An unstructured-grid model (FVCOM) coupled to a surface wave model (FVCOM-SWAVE) with two different setups is used to investigate the hydrodynamic and wave energy conditions during a moderate wind and a storm situation in the southern North Sea. One setup covers the whole North Sea with moderately increased grid resolution at the coast, whereas the other is a very high-resolution Wadden Sea setup that is one-way coupled to the coarser North Sea model. The results of both model setups are validated, compared to each other and analysed with a focus on longshore currents and wave energy. The numerical results show that during storm conditions, strong wave-induced longshore currents occur in front of the East Frisian Wadden Sea islands with current speeds up to 1 m/s. The model setup with the higher resolution around the islands shows even stronger currents than the coarser setup. The wave-current interaction also influences the surface elevation by raising the water level in the tidal basins. The calculated wave energies show large differences between moderate wind and storm conditions with time-averaged values up to 200 kW/m.

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony within the network KLIFF—climate impact and adaption research in Lower Saxony, the initiative Earth Science Knowledge Platform (ESKP) operated by the Helmholtz Association and the North-German Supercomputing Alliance (Norddeutscher Verbund zur Förderung des Hoch- und Höchstleistungsrechnens—HLRN). The authors like to thank Changsheng Chen and the other developers of the ocean modelling suite FVCOM for providing the source code of the ocean model, Reinhard Leidl and staff at the cluster HERO (High-End Computing Resource Oldenburg), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK) of the State of Lower Saxony, Germany and the people at the BSH, Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany. The authors also like to thank Oliver Bleich and Steffen Rettig for extracting and optimising coastline data and Burghard Flemming for advice on prescriptive linguistics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Centre for Materials and Coastal Research (HZG), Institute of Coastal Research, Max-Planck-Str. 1, 21502, Geesthacht, Germany

    Sebastian Grashorn & Emil V. Stanev

  2. Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Department of Physical Oceanography (Theory), Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Carl-von-Ossietzky-Str. 9-11, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany

    Karsten A. Lettmann & Jörg-Olaf Wolff

  3. Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Department of Marine Sensor Systems, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Carl-von-Ossietzky-Str. 9-11, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany

    Thomas H. Badewien

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  1. Sebastian Grashorn
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  4. Thomas H. Badewien
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Correspondence to Sebastian Grashorn.

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Responsible Editor: Martin Verlaan

This article is part of the Topical Collection on the 16th biennial workshop of the Joint Numerical Sea Modelling Group (JONSMOD) in Brest, France 21–23 May 2012

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Grashorn, S., Lettmann, K.A., Wolff, JO. et al. East Frisian Wadden Sea hydrodynamics and wave effects in an unstructured-grid model. Ocean Dynamics 65, 419–434 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-014-0807-5

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