THE NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF MIXING DEPTH AND THE THICKNESS OF BBL CONSIDERING THE SUBMERGED AQUATIC VEGETATION AND WIND STRESS

Abstract

Mangrove forests, salt marshes, and seagrass meadows have a vital role in mitigating global warming (Duarte et al.,2013). They contribute about 50 percent of carbon burial in ocean sediments (Duarte et al., 2013). On the other hand, submerged aquatic vegetations (SAVs) significantly affect the mixing depth (the thickness of the upper layer), resulting in a change in carbon flux with the atmosphere. According to the numerical simulations in the previous studies, mixing depth becomes larger with increasing SAV's density and decreasing SAV’s height (Herb et al., 2005, Vilas et al., 2017). On the other hand, Coates et al. (2009) indicated that wind stress was not crucial for mixing depth in SAV’s meadow since it did not change the vertical turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) profile, except in the thin surface layer, thus mixing depth became similar even though wind speed varied under the effect of SAVs (Coates et al., 2009). In addition, it is crucial to estimate the thickness of the benthic boundary layer (BBL) because dissolved inorganic carbon elucidates from bottom sediments, affecting carbon flux. Therefore, we aim to clarify how wind stress impacts the mixing depth and thickness of BBL with SAVs.