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Wind and density driven flow along the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf. Rob Hetland Zhaoru Zhang Martino Marta-Almeida Xiaoqian Zhang. The Gulf of Mexico has a number of environmental problems:. Oil spills. And the list goes on. Harmful algal blooms. NASA MODIS May 24, 2010.
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Wind and density driven flow along the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf • Rob Hetland • Zhaoru Zhang • Martino Marta-Almeida • Xiaoqian Zhang
The Gulf of Mexico has a number of environmental problems: Oil spills And the list goes on.... Harmful algal blooms NASA MODIS May 24, 2010 Bottom hypoxia Karenia brevis Photo credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission LUMCON - July 24-27, 2012
Series of Models: Louisiana shelf wind/buoyancy driven flow NEXT TALK Wind-driven surface current predictions for entire gulf – focused on TX shelf TX/LA shelf wind/buoyancy driven flow
Animation courtesy Chris Barker (NOAA R&R)Surface currents provided by Rob Hetland and Steve Baum, TAMUFunding by the Texas General Land Office TABS program
B D F J K N R V W
~3 hr lag ~12 hr lag
Wind Currents
Wind Obs. Model 2006 2009 10 year mean
Seasonal surface currents from LATEX moorings Non-summer mean Summer mean Cho et al. (JGR, 1998)
JFM mean density cross-section Thermal wind balance currents u|z=h=0 JFM mean along-shore currents Along-shore currents are nearly in thermal-wind balance
Meade et al. (1995) USGS Circular 1133
Every third grid point shown HYCOM IASNFS (subset) NGOM
Model salinity skill Dataset Parent models CLM Nested models Red = good (within 10% of max skill)
Perturbed simulations (±5% wind and rivers)
Noise at a point on the shelf Domain average noise
Conclusions: Nesting improves model skill, but it does not appear to matter which model is used*. Although there is significant unpredictable, small-scale eddies at the submesoscale, the large scale plume structure is reproducible in a model without data assimilation. *For salinity, anyways...