Thermohydrodynamics of the ocean generation of seiches by moving baric fronts in bounded basins

Abstract

We consider a plane problem of barotropic seiches generated by a front of atmospheric pressure moving over a bounded basin. A system of nonlinear equations of long waves is solved by the finite-difference method with regard for the bottom friction and Earth's rotation. The numerical analyses are performed for two basins with distributions of depths typical of the Black Sea. It is shown that the passage of a baric front over the basin leads to the generation of lower seiches. The oscillations of level and the corresponding currents are especially intense in the shallow-water zones of the basins. The seiches become more intense as the velocity of transfer of the atmospheric front increases and the width of the front decreases. Earth's rotation leads to the generation of longshore currents and promotes the process of weakening of residual oscillations of the fluid following the passage of the front. The influence of nonlinearity on seiches is small for the analyzed basins.