Landry, J.J., 2014. Coastal Ocean Variability off the Coast of Taiwan in Response to Typhoon Morakot: River Forcing, Atmospheric Forcing and Cold Dome Dynamics. SM Thesis, MIT-WHOI Joint Program, September 2014.
The ocean is a complex, constantly changing, highly dynamical system. Prediction
capabilities are constantly being improved in order to better understand and forecast
ocean properties for applications in science, industry, and maritime interests. Our
overarching goal is to better predict the ocean environment in regions of complex
topography with a continental shelf, shelfbreak, canyons and steep slopes using the
MIT Multidisciplinary Simulation, Estimation and Assimilation Systems (MSEAS)
primitive-equation ocean model. We did this by focusing on the complex region
surrounding Taiwan, and the period of time immediately following the passage of
Typhoon Morakot. This area and period were studied extensively as part of the
intense observation period during August – September 2009 of the joint U.S. – Taiwan
program Quantifying, Predicting, and Exploiting Uncertainty Department Research
Initiative (QPE DRI). Typhoon Morakot brought an unprecedented amount of rainfall
within a very short time period and in this research, we model and study the effects
of this rainfall on Taiwan’s coastal oceans as a result of river discharge. We do this
through the use of a river discharge model and a bulk river-ocean mixing model. We
complete a sensitivity study of the primitive-equation ocean model simulations to the
different parameters of these models. By varying the shape, size, and depth of the
bulk mixing model footprint, and examining the resulting impacts on ocean salinity
forecasts, we are able to determine an optimal combination of salinity relaxation
factors for highest accuracy.
