Brodie Katherine L.

No Thumbnail Available
Last Name
Brodie
First Name
Katherine L.
ORCID
0000-0003-1945-5112

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Article
    Field observations of the evolution of plunging-wave shapes
    (American Geophysical Union, 2021-07-21) O'Dea, Annika ; Brodie, Katherine L. ; Elgar, Steve
    There are few high-resolution field observations of the water surface during breaking owing to the difficulty of collecting spatially dense measurements in the surf zone, and thus the factors influencing breaking-wave shape in field conditions remain poorly understood. Here, the shape and evolution of plunging breakers is analyzed quantitatively using three-dimensional scans of the water surface collected at high spatial and temporal resolution with a multi-beam terrestrial lidar scanner. The observed internal void shapes in plunging breakers agree well with previously developed theoretical shapes at the onset of breaking, and become more elongated and less steep as breaking progresses. The normalized void area increases as the local bottom slope steepens and as the breaking depth decreases. The void shape becomes more circular as the local bottom slope and the ratio of breaking water depth to wavelength increase, as well as in conditions with opposing winds.
  • Article
    Evaluation of video-based linear depth inversion performance and applications using altimeters and hydrographic surveys in a wide range of environmental conditions
    (Elsevier, 2018-03-12) Brodie, Katherine L. ; Palmsten, Margaret L. ; Hesser, Tyler J. ; Dickhudt, Patrick J. ; Raubenheimer, Britt ; Ladner, Hannah ; Elgar, Steve
    The performance of a linear depth inversion algorithm, cBathy, applied to coastal video imagery was assessed using observations of water depth from vessel-based hydrographic surveys and in-situ altimeters for a wide range of wave conditions (0.3 < significant wave height < 4.3 m) on a sandy Atlantic Ocean beach near Duck, North Carolina. Comparisons of video-based cBathy bathymetry with surveyed bathymetry were similar to previous studies (root mean square error (RMSE) = 0.75 m, bias = −0.26 m). However, the cross-shore locations of the surfzone sandbar in video-derived bathymetry were biased onshore 18–40 m relative to the survey when offshore wave heights exceeded 1.2 m or were greater than half of the bar crest depth, and broke over the sandbar. The onshore bias was 3–4 m when wave heights were less than 0.8 m and were not breaking over the sandbar. Comparisons of video-derived seafloor elevations with in-situ altimeter data at three locations onshore of, near, and offshore of the surfzone sandbar over ∼1 year provide the first assessment of the cBathy technique over a wide range of wave conditions. In the outer surf zone, video-derived results were consistent with long-term patterns of bathymetric change (r2 = 0.64, RMSE = 0.26 m, bias = −0.01 m), particularly when wave heights were less than 1.2 m (r2 = 0.83). However, during storms when wave heights exceeded 3 m, video-based cBathy over-estimated the depth by up to 2 m. Near the sandbar, the sign of depth errors depended on the location relative to wave breaking, with video-based depths overestimated (underestimated) offshore (onshore) of wave breaking in the surfzone. Wave speeds estimated by video-based cBathy at the initiation of wave breaking often were twice the speeds predicted by linear theory, and up to three times faster than linear theory during storms. Estimated wave speeds were half as fast as linear theory predictions at the termination of wave breaking shoreward of the sandbar. These results suggest that video-based cBathy should not be used to track the migration of the surfzone sandbar using data when waves are breaking over the bar nor to quantify morphological evolution during storms. However, these results show that during low energy conditions, cBathy estimates could be used to quantify seasonal patterns of seafloor evolution.
  • Article
    Lidar and pressure measurements of inner-surfzone waves and setup
    (American Meteorological Society, 2015-10) Brodie, Katherine L. ; Raubenheimer, Britt ; Elgar, Steve ; Slocum, R. K. ; McNinch, Jesse E.
    Observations of waves and setup on a steep, sandy beach are used to identify and assess potential applications of spatially dense lidar measurements for studying inner-surf and swash-zone hydrodynamics. There is good agreement between lidar- and pressure-based estimates of water levels (r2 = 0.98, rmse = 0.05 m), setup (r2 = 0.92, rmse = 0.03 m), infragravity wave heights (r2 = 0.91, rmse = 0.03 m), swell–sea wave heights (r2 = 0.87, rmse = 0.07 m), and energy density spectra. Lidar observations did not degrade with range (up to 65 m offshore of the lidar) when there was sufficient foam present on the water surface to generate returns, suggesting that for narrow-beam 1550-nm light, spatially varying spot size, grazing angle affects, and linear interpolation (to estimate the water surface over areas without returns) are not large sources of error. Consistent with prior studies, the lidar and pressure observations indicate that standing infragravity waves dominate inner-surf and swash energy at low frequencies and progressive swell–sea waves dominate at higher frequencies. The spatially dense lidar measurements enable estimates of reflection coefficients from pairs of locations at a range of spatial lags (thus spanning a wide range of frequencies or wavelengths). Reflection is high at low frequencies, increases with beach slope, and decreases with increasing offshore wave height, consistent with prior studies. Lidar data also indicate that wave asymmetry increases rapidly across the inner surf and swash. The comparisons with pressure measurements and with theory demonstrate that lidar measures inner-surf waves and setup accurately, and can be used for studies of inner-surf and swash-zone hydrodynamics.
  • Article
    CoastalImageLib: an open- source Python package for creating common coastal image products
    (Elsevier, 2022-10-19) McCann, Maile P. ; Anderson, Dylan L. ; Sherwood, Christopher R. ; Bruder, Brittany ; Bak, A. Spicer ; Brodie, Katherine L.
    CoastalImageLib is a Python library that produces common coastal image products intended for quantitative analysis of coastal environments. This library contains functions to georectify and merge multiple oblique camera views, produce statistical image products for a given set of images, and create subsampled pixel instruments for use in bathymetric inversion, surface current estimation, run-up calculations, and other quantitative analyses. This package intends to be an open-source broadly generalizable front end to future coastal imaging applications, ultimately expanding user accessibility to optical remote sensing of coastal environments. This package was developed and tested on data collected from the Argus Tower, a 43 m tall observation structure in Duck, North Carolina at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Field Research Facility that holds six stationary cameras which collect twice-hourly coastal image products. Thus, CoastalImageLib also contains functions designed to interface with the file storage and collection system implemented at the Argus Tower.