Autori: Rusu, L., Bernardino, M.., Guedes Soares, C

Editorial: Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue: Part 2 Sp. Iss. 56, p.1419- 1423, 2009.

Rezumat:

Estuaries are commonly characterized as coastal environments combining locally generated waves with waves that penetrate from offshore. The present work provides a study on the wave generation and propagation in the Tagus estuary that was carried out by performing simulations with numerical models. For this purpose, SWAN spectral phase averaging wave model was considered. Taking into account its particularities, this model is considered able to estimate adequately the wave conditions in such complex estuarine environment. In order to evaluate the influence of the wind fields on the wave parameters as resulting from the wave model simulations in the target area, several sensitivity experiments have been performed using both uniform and variable wind forcing. Statistical analysis of an eleven-year period of meteorological data (1995-2005), measured at a station located in Lisbon in the neighborhood of the target area, allowed to establish the most representative wind patterns. These were used to determine typical sets of pairs of wind parameters (velocity and direction), that are considered for generating uniform wind fields inside the estuary. Variable wind fields with different resolutions were provided by the MM5 mesoscale atmospheric model. The present work illustrates the impact of the wind field spatial resolutions on the wave model results, and, as a consequence, the need of a careful attention regarding the wind data that are used in wave modeling.

Cuvinte cheie: Tagus estuary, SWAN model, wind waves modeling

URL: http://e-geo.fcsh.unl.pt/ICS2009/_docs/ICS2009_Volume_II/1419.1423_L.Rusu_ICS2009.pdf