Effect of the Basin shape on Formation of the Black Sea Circulation

A.A. Pavlushin, N.B. Shapiro, E.N. Mikhailova

Marine Hydrophysical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Sevastopol, Russian Federation

e-mail: pavlushin@mhi-ras.ru

Abstract

The results of numerical modeling of the wind circulation in the basins of various configurations, with horizontal bottom and with no account of the β-effect are represented. The present paper is a continuation of a series of experiments on numerical modeling the processes of formation of the Black Sea hydrophysical fields using a two-layer eddy-resolving model. Stationary cyclonic wind is used as an external forcing. Enegy sink takes place due to the bottom friction and the horizontal turbulent friction. The used in the model empirical coefficients in the equation terms describing friction are chosen in such a way that the circulation resulting from the simulations should correspond qualitatively to the one observed in the Black Sea. It is shown that at the prolonged forcing of the cyclonic wind in the stretched basins, the large-scale circulation arising due to vorticity of the wind tangential tention is divided into a few sub-basin gyres tending to take a shape of circles inscribed in the basin geometry. The number of such gyres depends on the ratio between the basin length and width: the more stretched the pool, the larger the number of the induced vortices. The processes of the current fields’ formation in the basin are also affected by the coastline features. The experiments confirmed that formation of two separate cyclonic vortices in the Black Sea known as "Knipovich Glasses" is conditioned by the stretched shape of the basin and the influence of the Anatolian peninsula extension.

Keywords

the Black Sea, eddy-resolving model, numerical experiment, hydrodynamic instability of currents, basin shape

For citation

Pavlushin, A.A., Shapiro, N.B. and Mikhailova, E.N., 2016. Effect of the Basin shape on Formation of the Black Sea Circulation. Physical Oceanography, (2), pp. 3-13. doi:10.22449/1573-160X-2016-2-3-13

DOI

10.22449/1573-160X-2016-2-3-13

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