Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Abstract

Three-dimensional Princeton Ocean Model (POM) is used to investigate the dynamics of the shelf flow response to the spatial and temporal variability of the wind stress forcing. The model has been configured for the west coast of India with higher horizontal resolution of 9km near the coast. In the vertical, a terrain following sigma coordinate is used with 26 levels, having fine resolution near the surface and bottom. In the present study, an attempt is made to understand the variability of the surface circulation and associated SST as a response of daily wind stress forcing derived from the QSCAT winds. The prevailing southerly current during July-August along the Kerala coast supports upwelling processes along the region. However, the coastal current reverses its direction to either off-shore or northward if the wind magnitude reduces suddenly to less than 3ms -1 towards the coast. In this event, the coastal upwelling is inhibited by the reversal of currents and it results an increase in the local SST. This feature is also noticed in the buoy data available for 2002. The reversal of currents is explained in terms of local vorticity generated as a result of reduction of wind magnitude near the coast.

Biography

A D Rao was awarded Ph.D. at the age of 25 years for his work on Numerical modeling of storm surges in India from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and postdoctoral studies from University of Reading, UK. He also visited Florida State University as a visiting faculty for one year. His research interests include development of numerical models for storm surges, ocean state forecast, internal waves. His work in this field is very well recognized through his publications and to his credit; he has published about 175 refereed papers in various reputed international and national journals.