Using wind setdown and storm surge on Lake Erie to calibrate the air-sea drag coefficient.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 23977309.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0072510 and PMC identifier 3747107.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The air-sea drag coefficient controls the transfer of momentum from wind to water. In modeling storm surge, this coefficient is a crucial parameter for estimating the surge height. This study uses two strong wind events on Lake Erie to calibrate the drag coefficient using the Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Wave Sediment Transport (COAWST) modeling system and the the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS). Simulated waves are generated on the lake with Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN). Wind setdown provides the opportunity to eliminate wave setup as a contributing factor, since waves are minimal at the upwind shore. The study finds that model results significantly underestimate wind setdown and storm surge when a typical open-ocean formulation without waves is used for the drag coefficient. The contribution of waves to wind setdown and storm surge is 34.7%. Scattered lake ice also increases the effective drag coefficient by a factor of 1.1.
Medical subject headings
- Air
- Cyclonic Storms
- Lakes
- Oceans and Seas
- Water Movements
- Wind