Modeling of Unsteady Geophysical Processes on the Shelf of the Sea of Japan

The nonlinear equations of multilayer shallow water in the Boussinesq approximation are used for simulation of unsteady hydrophysical processes in the shelf zone of a tidal sea. The vertical distributions of the temperature and the horizontal velocity component along a straight path are calculated on the basis of the data on variation in temperature at given horizontals obtained on one of the bottom stations. The results of numerical simulation are verified using the data of other checking stations located along the path considered. It is shown that the multilayer model reproduces qualitatively the structure of the wave train observed and the equations of two-layer flow describe dynamics of the central part of the thermocline even when the stratification differs significantly from the two-layer stratification. Comparison of the calculation results with the field data makes it possible to conclude that the hypothesis on the quasi-two-dimensional nature of shelf flow that underlies the used approach corresponds to reality.