Air-sea-wave coupled modeling in the Mediterranean Sea

A fully-coupled, high- resolution, numerical model with data assimilation, COAMPS® has been developed by the Naval Research Laboratory to further enhance understanding of oceanic, atmospheric, and wave interactions. The fully-coupled air-sea-wave system consists of an atmospheric component with full physics parameterizations including MVOI-data assimilation, an oceanic component, NCOM (Navy Coastal Ocean Model), and a wave component, SWAN (Simulating Waves Nearshore). Air-sea interactions between the atmospheric and oceanic components are accomplished through bulk flux formulations of wind stress, sensible heat fluxes, and latent heat fluxes. The effects of waves on the ocean include the Stokes drift, the surface radiation stress forcing from the waves, and enhancement of the bottom drag coefficient in shallow water due to the wave orbital velocities at the bottom. NCOM surface currents are provided to SWAN to simulate wave-current interaction. The fully-coupled COAMPS system is validated against meteorological and wave data gathered in two regions: 1) the Adriatic Sea and 2) the Ligurian Sea. In the Adriatic Sea the data is from in-situ observations including several drifters and wave data from the “Dynamics of the Adriatic in Real-Time” (DART) field experiment and during two bora wind events in February 2003. In the Ligurian Sea wave data at near shore and deep sites and drifter data has been provided by the Ligurian Sea Air-Sea Interaction Experiment of June/July 2007 (LASIE07). The fully coupled model is compared against sensitivity studies where the wave to ocean feedback and ocean to wave feedbacks are removed.