Semidiurnal tides in the Laptev Sea Shelf zone in the summer season

• Published in: Continental Shelf Research
• Main Authors: Fofonova, V., Androsov, A., Danilov, S., Janout, Markus, Sofina, E., Wiltshire, K.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2014
• Subjects: Laptev Sea; laptev; lena delta
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/28010/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/28010/1/2014_Fofonova-etal-Semidiurnal_CSR-73.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csr.2013.11.010

Tidal processes play an important role in the dynamics of shelf circulation in the Laptev Sea. The Unstructured Grid Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) is used to simulate the tidal dynamics in the Lena Delta region of the Laptev Sea in ice-free barotropic case. The grid element size ranges from 400 m to 5 km. The major semidiurnal tidal waves M2M2 and S2S2 are investigated with the M2M2 being the most important in generating large sea level amplitudes and currents over shallow areas. A correction to the tidal elevation at the open boundary is proposed, which minimizes the discrepancy between the model prediction and observations. The observations include both recent mooring data and the standard set of tide gauge measurements used in previous studies. The comparison of results to known tidal solutions is carried out. The paper also discusses the residual circulation and energy fluxes and assesses the impact of additional bathymetric information. Highlights • Our simulations reproduce the semidiurnal tidal waves M2M2 and S2S2 in the Laptev Sea region. • We develop special procedure for the construction of optimal open boundary conditions for tidal elevation for M2M2 and S2S2 constituents. • The simulated tidal maps show an improved agreement with observations. • We analyze barotropic currents, residual circulation and evolution of energy fluxes in the region. • We consider the energy balance for the M2M2 and S2S2 waves and the sensitivity to the bathymetry.