Quantifying Uncertainty in Estuarine and Coastal Ocean Circulation Modeling
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 134, Issue 4
Abstract
A methodology is developed to describe the effect of errors (or uncertainty) in the specification of certain drivers (bathymetry, river inflow, and wind speeds) on the circulation computed by a three-dimensional estuarine and coastal hydrodynamic circulation model. The methodology is based on first order variance analysis. Two analytical examples are used to illustrate the method and to provide a context for interpreting real world settings. An application of the method to a model of the N.Y./N.J. Harbor Estuary shows that current predictions are considerably sensitive to the accurate specification of bathymetry, and are usually more sensitive than water level predictions to errors in bathymetry. Estuarine properties with a strong seasonal (or spatial) component such as temperature or salinity did exhibit a sensitivity to driver accuracy that shifted from one season (or regime) to another. Bathymetry appears to control the circulation of the N.Y./N.J. Estuary more than the dynamic forcing of the winds and the Hudson River inflow, perhaps due to the fact that the estuary is primarily tidally driven.
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Acknowledgments
The writers want to acknowledge the excellent comments received from the Associate Editor and three anonymous reviewers who were assigned to this paper. Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research under ONR Grant No. ONRN00014-03-1-0633.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 134 • Issue 4 • April 2008
Pages: 403 - 415
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 10, 2006
Accepted: Jul 26, 2007
Published online: Apr 1, 2008
Published in print: Apr 2008
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