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A numerical study of water circulation in a thermally stratified embayment

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Abstract

Princeton Ocean Model is used to study the response of Jervis Bay, NSW, Australia, to the local wind and remote shelf coastal trapped wave (CTW) forcings in summer seasons when the water column is stratified by the water temperature. The study has revealed that the response of bay to the wind forcing is the generation of the wind driven currents and the internal Kelvin waves (IKW). However, both temperature and flow sub-inertial oscillations in the bay are weaker than those from the observations and the correlation between the modeled and observed low frequency currents is low. In response to the forcing of CTWs on the adjacent shelf, IKWs are also established in the bay and amplitudes of sub-inertial oscillations of temperature and currents agree better with the observations. It can be concluded that sub-inertial baroclinic flows in the bay is dominantly forced by remote CTW on the shelf adjacent to Jervis Bay during thermally stratified summer seasons.

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Wang, X.H., Wang, X.L. A numerical study of water circulation in a thermally stratified embayment. J Ocean Univ. China 2, 24–34 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-003-0022-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-003-0022-3

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