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Tide-surge and wave interaction in the Gulf of Maine during an extratropical storm

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Abstract

The fully coupled spectral wave and circulation model SWAN + ADCIRC was applied to investigate tide-surge and wave interaction in the Gulf of Maine during the extratropical storm on Patriot’s Day of 2007. Significant tide-surge and wave interaction was found over Georges Bank and in the coastal areas. Over Georges Bank, the wave-induced current reached 0.2 m/s at the storm peak, accounting for 17 % of the total depth-averaged current. In Saco Bay, the current was dominated by wave-induced current with a magnitude up to 1.0 m/s during the storm. Two clockwise circulation gyres were found to form and sustain over a period of 26 hours during the storm in the bay. They were driven by spatial variations of wave height, direction and the resulting wave radiation stress gradient. Wave setup reached 0.2 m at the storm peak along the coast of Saco Bay. In Saco Bay, wave energy dissipation was reduced and wave height increased due to the increased water depth at high tide and surge. Therefore, wave height was modulated by tide and surge accordingly along the coast. As a result, wave setup and wave-induced current in the bay were also modulated by tide and surge. During the tidal cycle at the storm peak, wave setup increased with tidal level and the maximum wave setup coincided with high tide.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Maine Sea Grant and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Grants No. NA10OAR4170072). The work was also part of the Ensemble Estimation of Flood Risk in A Changing Climate (EFRaCC) project funded by the British Council under its Global Innovation Initiative, and the open fund research at the State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River (SKHL) at Sichuan University. We would like to thank John Cannon and Anthony Mignone at National Weather Service for helpful discussions. The second author is also supported on a summer assistantship by National Science Foundation award #IIA-1355457 to Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maine, Orono, ME, 04469-5711, USA

    Qingping Zou & Dongmei Xie

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  1. Qingping Zou
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  2. Dongmei Xie
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Correspondence to Qingping Zou.

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Responsible Editor: Kevin Horsburgh

This article is part of the Topical Collection on the 14th International Workshop on Wave Hindcasting and Forecasting in Key West, Florida, USA, November 8–13, 2015

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Zou, Q., Xie, D. Tide-surge and wave interaction in the Gulf of Maine during an extratropical storm. Ocean Dynamics 66, 1715–1732 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-016-1002-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-016-1002-7

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