Research Summaries

Back CLASI - Coastal Land Air Sea Interaction

Fiscal Year 2020
Division Graduate School of Engineering & Applied Science
Department Oceanography
Investigator(s) MacMahan, James H.
Sponsor Office of Naval Research (Navy)
Summary This project will seek to develop and/or modify parameterizations for the coastal (defined here as within ± 6-km of the shoreline) wind, momentum and heat flux variability through a comprehensive experimental and modeling program. The aim of CLASI will be to directly observe the nearshore (including mid-shelf, inner shelf, and surf zone) and onshore conditions using a collection of Air-Sea Interaction Spar (ASIS) buoys, inner shelf spar buoys (I-SPAR) and coastal, land-based towers. This data will be supplemented with remotely-sensed observations (e.g. satellite and X-band radar and drone observations) and LES modeling. The results will be used to develop "coast-aware" parametrizations of air-sea fluxes for use in mesoscale numerical weather prediction models (here COAMPS, but will also be applicable to next generation models) and a toolbox that nearshore research community can utilize. The new parameterizations will be implemented into the high resolution COAMPS predictions of the wind vector fields, temperatures and fluxes in several distinct coastal typologies in Monterey Bay, South Florida and Hawaii. The "coast-aware" model output will be validated using portions of the CLASI data set not used in developing the new parameterizations, as a means of assessing the parameterizations' generalizability.
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Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal