Measurement-derived Heat-budget Approaches for Simulating Coastal Wetland Temperature with a Hydrodynamic Model

Abstract

Numerical modeling is needed to predict environmental temperatures, which affect a number of biota in southern Florida, U.S.A., such as the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus), which uses thermal basins for refuge from lethal winter cold fronts. To numerically simulate heat-transport through a dynamic coastal wetland region, an algorithm was developed for the FTLOADDS coupled hydrodynamic surface-water/ground-water model that uses formulations and coefficients suited to the coastal wetland thermal environment. In this study, two field sites provided atmospheric data to develop coefficients for the heat flux terms representing this particular study area. Several methods were examined to represent the heat-flux components used to compute temperature. A Dalton equation was compared with a Penman formulation for latent heat computations, producing similar daily-average temperatures. Simulation of heat-transport in the southern Everglades indicates that the model represents the daily fluctuation in coastal temperatures better than at inland locations; possibly due to the lack of information on the spatial variations in heat-transport parameters such as soil heat capacity and surface albedo. These simulation results indicate that the new formulation is suitable for defining the existing thermohydrologic system and evaluating the ecological effect of proposed restoration efforts in the southern Everglades of Florida.

Applying Downscaled Global Climate Model Data to a Hydrodynamic Surface-Water and Groundwater Model

“…Scenarios with different mean sea level were simulated in BISCAYNE/TIME by adding the sea-level difference to the historical data time series uniformly. Selection of a 30-cm rise above current sea levels was considered to be a moderate estimate for the 2038-2057 period [10]. Simulating future rainfall effects with and without the sea-level rise provided a means to separately measure the relative effect of precipitation and sea level.…”

“…Transient processes, such as surface-water flooding and drying, are represented along with longer timescale processes such as evapotranspiration and groundwater responses. The evapotranspiration is computed based on the Penman-Monteith formulation coupled to the heat-transport capabilities of FTLOADDS [10].…”

The Use of Water Vapor Isotopes to Determine Evapotranspiration Source Contributions in the Natural Environment

“…To further emphasize, Swain, E., and Decker, J., (2010) studied evaporation using water tanks altered to simulate wetland temperature conditions [24]. They utilized the Clausius-Clapeyron equation to shed light on the exponential relationship between saturation water-vapor pressure and measurement height above an evaporating surface of water.…”

Numerical computation of hurricane effects on historic coastal hydrology in Southern Florida

“…Both regimes incorporate the effects of salinity concentration on water density. The capability to simulate surfacewater heat transport and temperature was incorporated into the code with the added benefit of cell-by-cell evapotranspiration computations (Swain and Decker, 2010).…”