Type
ArticleDate
2018-05-31Online Publication Date
2018-05-31Print Publication Date
2018-07Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/629789
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A primary challenge in modeling flow over shallow coral reefs is accurately characterizing the bottom drag. Previous studies over continental shelves and sandy beaches suggest surface gravity waves should enhance the drag on the circulation over coral reefs. The influence of surface gravity waves on drag over four platform reefs in the Red Sea is examined using observations from 6-month deployments of current and pressure sensors burst sampling at 1 Hz for 4–5 min. Depth-average current fluctuations U′ within each burst are dominated by wave orbital velocities uw that account for 80%–90% of the burst variance and have a magnitude of order 10 cm s−1, similar to the lower-frequency depth-average current Uavg. Previous studies have shown that the cross-reef bottom stress balances the pressure gradient over these reefs. A bottom stress estimate that neglects the waves (ρCdaUavg|Uavg|, where ρ is water density and Cda is a drag coefficient) balances the observed pressure gradient when uw is smaller than Uavg but underestimates the pressure gradient when uw is larger than Uavg (by a factor of 3–5 when uw = 2Uavg), indicating the neglected waves enhance the bottom stress. In contrast, a bottom stress estimate that includes the waves [ρCda(Uavg + U′)|Uavg + U′|)] balances the observed pressure gradient independent of the relative size of uw and Uavg, indicating that this estimate accounts for the wave enhancement of the bottom stress. A parameterization proposed by Wright and Thompson provides a reasonable estimate of the total bottom stress (including the waves) given the burst-averaged current and the wave orbital velocity.Citation
Lentz SJ, Churchill JH, Davis KA (2018) Coral Reef Drag Coefficients—Surface Gravity Wave Enhancement. Journal of Physical Oceanography 48: 1555–1566. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-17-0231.1.Sponsors
The authors thank Dr. Yasser Abualnaja, Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Suwailem, Haitham Aljahdali, Mohsen Aljahdali, Ramzi Aljahdali, Wael Almoazen, Captain Evangelos G. Aravantinos, Yasser Kattan, the whaler crew from King Abdullah University of Sciences and Technology (KAUST), and C. Marquette of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) for providing logistical and field support. Suggestions from an anonymous reviewer substantially improved the manuscript. The Red Sea field program was supported by Awards USA 00002 and KSA 00011 made by KAUST. Data are available from corresponding author (slentz@whoi.edu) upon request, subject to approval from KAUST. S. Lentz was supported for the analysis by NSF Award OCE-1558343.Publisher
American Meteorological SocietyJournal
Journal of Physical Oceanographyae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1175/jpo-d-17-0231.1