Abstract
The conditions for the occurrence of high waves in front of the Rijeka port in the Rijeka Bay were analyzed. The analysis was carried out on the basis of measured data on the wave rider station located in front of the main breakwater of the port of Rijeka and the results of numerical wave generation modelings for the wider sea area on the spatial scale of the Adriatic basin. The results of the conducted analysis show that the sudden transition in wind direction from the third to the second quadrant (and vice versa), with the simultaneous rapid increase in wind speed, creates the conditions for generating the largest waves in front of the port of Rijeka. The main reason for achieving the highest wave height in these conditions is the unbalanced wind power input with non-developed surface dissipation (white-capping) and quadruplet wave interaction. Situations with a slower increase in wind speed and approximately constant wind direction resulted in the occurrence of smaller wave heights. The direct application of anemometric data for the forcing wind field in the Adriatic basin within the wave generation model results in a more accurate simulation of wave height and wave period development than application of the wind field from the prediction atmospheric model Aladin-Hr. This is due to the fact that the site is located in a semi-enclosed sea area of restricted fetch, and the spatial/temporal resolution of atmospheric data (2 km and 3 h) is not sufficient to resolve the rapid transition in the wind field. In the case of direct application of anemometric data, the white-capping parameterization should be of a non-stationary character.
Highlights
The east coast of the Adriatic has 1246 islands, islets and rocks with prominent channel systems, so it can be considered an archipelago area from a geographic and oceanographic point of view [1] (Figure 1)
There is a rapid increase in wave height that can reach the extreme values for a specific location, the terminal wind speed in this situation is significantly lower than the maximum wind speed in some other situations with a slower transition of wind speed and direction [3]
The occurrence of such a situation was recorded in the Rijeka Bay coastal waters (Figure 1), with the highest significant and maximum wave height (HS-MAX = 2.06 m; HMAX-MAX = 4.07 m) measured at wind speed of only 10.5 m/s, after a sudden rise in wind speed and wind direction change from 300◦ to 170◦
Summary
The east coast of the Adriatic has 1246 islands, islets and rocks with prominent channel systems, so it can be considered an archipelago area from a geographic and oceanographic point of view [1] (Figure 1). There is a rapid increase in wave height that can reach the extreme values for a specific location, the terminal wind speed in this situation is significantly lower than the maximum wind speed in some other situations with a slower transition of wind speed and direction [3]. The results of the analysis on the influence of wind field transition velocity (wind speed and direction) on the development of significant wave heights (HS) in the case of hypothetical closed area are presented, along with the results of numerical simulations for the realistic sea area in four selected real situations.
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