Characteristics of Winter Current Pattern in the Ishikari Bay

Abstract

The winter current pattern in 2003 in the Ishikari Bay was investigated by using the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) and field observation data. The model was forced by six hour, spatially distributed wind and open boundary forcing. The later was obtained from larger scale model namely Japan Coastal Ocean Predictability Experiment (JCOPE). Through three numerical experiments with different driving forces the following conclusions have been deduced: (1) the open boundary forcing is the major driving force for current in deep water, the effect of wind in this region is limited in few surface layers (2) the flow along the shelf and current in shallow region are mainly driven by wind forcing (3) circulations occur in the shallow area during strong wind conditions. A comparison between observed and computed current velocities showed that the model is capable to reproduce current pattern in the bay.

Characteristics of suspended sediment material transport in the Ishikari Bay in snowmelt season

“…The hydrodynamic condition in the Ishikari Bay can be characterized as following: The wind stress is the major driving force for winter current pattern in the inner of the Ishikari Bay, the far field effect through open boundary can be neglected [28]. In spring and summer when the river discharge is high, the density driven current in the inner region should be taken into account.…”

A Process Study of Suspended Sediment Material Transport in the Ishikari Bay

“…The analysis of sediment transport results will be only done for the inner region of the Ishikari Bay shown in Fig.1b. The formulations of the open boundaries for current velocities are the same as shown in Le et al 7). An advection scheme is used for temperature and salinity.…”