Downscaled Numerical Modelling to Study the Climate Change Effects on the Estuarine Stratification

The climate change affects adversely the estuarine systems by acidifying and increasing temperature of the seawater. Also temperature rises faster in the surface layer than the deep water and this strengthens the stratification. Such changes of the stratification could affect circulation, water quality and so ecosystem of an estuary in the various ways. Therefore, the prediction of the changes of the stratification in the estuary is critical in mitigating the damage to the ecosystem of the estuaries. However, the prediction of the stratification in the coastal water bodies requires highly resolved information for the complicate circulations and complex coastal lines of the estuaries. Therefore, we downscaled data from the large-scale operational ocean models to the local regional models to simulate an estuary of Korea for the near present years and 50 years later with the sea level rise. Based on these downscaled results, Potential Energy Anomalies (PEAs) are numerated, which can help to assess quantitatively the stratification. Based on the PEA analysis, the stratification effects are expected to be much more significant in the estuarine river channel than the coastal sea and it means that the sea level rise affects both the coastal sea and upstream fresh water area.