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    Coral reef drag coefficients – water depth dependence

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    jpo-d-16-0248.1.pdf (2.567Mb)
    Date
    2017-05-04
    Author
    Lentz, Steven J.  Concept link
    Davis, Kristen A.  Concept link
    Churchill, James H.  Concept link
    DeCarlo, Thomas M.  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/9017
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-16-0248.1
    DOI
    10.1175/JPO-D-16-0248.1
    Keyword
     Ocean; Currents; Wind stress; Boundary layer; Sea level; Tides 
    Abstract
    A major challenge in modeling the circulation over coral reefs is uncertainty in the drag coefficient because existing estimates span two orders of magnitude. Current and pressure measurements from five coral reefs are used to estimate drag coefficients based on depth-average flow, assuming a balance between the cross-reef pressure gradient and the bottom stress. At two sites wind stress is a significant term in the cross-reef momentum balance and is included in estimating the drag coefficient. For the five coral reef sites and a previous laboratory study, estimated drag coefficients increase as the water depth decreases consistent with open channel flow theory. For example, for a typical coral reef hydrodynamic roughness of 5 cm, observational estimates, and the theory indicate that the drag coefficient decreases from 0.4 in 20 cm of water to 0.005 in 10 m of water. Synthesis of results from the new field observations with estimates from previous field and laboratory studies indicate that coral reef drag coefficients range from 0.2 to 0.005 and hydrodynamic roughnesses generally range from 2 to 8 cm. While coral reef drag coefficients depend on factors such as physical roughness and surface waves, a substantial fraction of the scatter in estimates of coral reef drag coefficients is due to variations in water depth.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1061-1075, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0248.1.
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    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    Suggested Citation
    Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1061-1075
     
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