Modelling sea surface currents in the eastern coast of Bawean Island, East Java

Bawean Island is located in the middle of the Java Sea, approximately 80 km north of Gresik Regency, East Java Province. The coastal area of Bawean Island is famous for its potential as a marine tourism area because it has a well-preserved coral reef ecosystem. The potential for tourism development on this island requires the support of environmental suitability. The dynamics of ocean currents as an important parameter for small island development is important to be analyzed. This study aims to determine the characteristics of currents in the eastern coast of Bawean Island through the hydro-oceanographic model. The data used in this modelling was hourly wind and tide data from the period of 2020-2021. The results showed that the velocity of surface current speed in the study area was weak (<0,5 m/s). There was a significant difference of current direction during the west monsoon season and the first transitional season. Validation of model simulation and ADCP measurements produce MAE values 0,014 and 0,035 as well as MAPE values 12,75% and 27,48%.

Improving Water Level Forecast of an Oceanographic Model in Malacca Strait Based on Data-Driven Open Boundary Correction

Numerical model is an indispensable tool for understanding oceanographic phenomena and resolving associated physical processes. However, model error cannot be avoided due to limitations such as underlying assumption, insufficient information of bathymetry or boundary condition and so on. Data assimilation technique thus becomes an effective and essential tool to improve prediction accuracy. Updating of output is an efficient way to correct the model, but it is often carried out locally at specific locations in the model domain where measurement is available. In this study, instead of correcting output of numerical model locally, we propose to combine local correction and input correction to update open boundary of numerical model. The open boundary condition is corrected through spatial interpolation algorithm based on nearby observation in the hindcast period. Then the local forecast at measured location is distributed using the same interpolation scheme to update the boundary in the forecast period. Such boundary correction not only explores the variation in the future time step from the input updating but also allows the backbone physics embedded in numerical model to resolve the hydrodynamics in the entire computational domain.

Ocean destratification and fish evacuation caused by a Mid-Atlantic tropical storm

Tropical and extratropical storms commonly occur in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, sometimes causing catastrophic losses to coastal fisheries. Still, their influence on fish movements and range shifts is poorly known. We coupled biotelemetry observations of black sea bass in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Bight with numerical modelling of the coastal ocean to evaluate the influence of Hermine (3–8 September 2016) on cold pool thermal destratification and fish evacuation. Spring through fall, black sea bass is a sedentary species, with movements focused on structure where they support important commercial and recreational fisheries. During summer 2016, we characterized the movements of 45 acoustically tagged black sea bass at three sites deploying acoustic receivers moored in shelf waters 18–31 km east of Ocean City, Maryland, and at depths 20–32 m in the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight. On 3 September 2016, cyclonic winds of Hermine caused rapid destratification of the water column. At experimental sites, bottom temperatures rose from 13 to 23°C in 10 h. An oceanographic model and observing data showed that the effects of this destratification dominated large portions of the Mid-Atlantic Bight and had long term effects on seasonal evolution of the shelf temperature. Nearly half of remaining black sea bass on 3 September (40%) permanently evacuated the experimental sites. Those that remained showed long-term depressed activity levels. Although the cause of this incomplete evacuation is unknown, it exemplifies partial migration, which may buffer black sea bass to regional impacts of changed timing or increased incidence of tropical storms.

Sensitivity of sea-level forecasting to the horizontal resolution and sea surface forcing for different configurations of an oceanographic model of the Adriatic Sea

At the Hydro-meteo-climate service of the Regional environmental agency of Emilia-Romagna, Italy (Arpae-SIMC), the oceanographic numerical model AdriaROMS is used in the operational forecasting suite to compute sea level, temperature, salinity and 3-D current fields of the Adriatic Sea (northern Mediterranean Sea). In order to evaluate the performance of the sea-level forecast and to study different configurations of the ROMS model, two marine storms occurred on the Emilia Romagna coast during the winter 2015–2016 are investigated. The main focus of this study is to analyse the sensitivity of the model to the horizontal resolution and to the meteorological forcing. To this end, the model is run with two different configurations and with two horizontal grids at 1 and 2 km resolution. To study the influence of the meteorological forcing, the two storms have been reproduced by running ROMS in ensemble mode, forced by the 16-members of the meteorological ensemble COSMO-LEPS system. Possible optimizations of the model set-up are deduced by the comparison of the different run outputs.