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Overview
Project period: September 2003
- August 2007 Our
partners in MERHAB-LGL project: SUNY
Brockport
SUNY
ESF
University
of Tennessee
University
of Vermont Western
Michigan University Other
links: NOAA MERHAB fact sheet
NOAA
MERHAB page Our
project link at NOAA
A
project is being conducted as part of the MERHAB Lower Great
Lakes (MERHAB-LGL) project directed by Greg Boyer
at SUNY ESF to
develop a transport modeling capability that can be used to
predict the movement of an algal bloom in a lake. Consistent
with the overall goals of the MERHAB project, models are being
developed for each of the three main lakes in the study, Lakes
Ontario, Erie and Champlain. The main components of this project
involve coupling hydrodynamic and particle tracking
models (PTM) for each of the lakes. As a first step, the Princeton
Ocean Model (POM) is being used to generate circulations.
The PTM then uses the velocity and diffusivity outputs to
compute movement of passively drifting tracers. Example outputs
may be accessed below. The PTM is based on a random
walk algorithm that incorporates a deterministic component based
on mean velocity and spatial gradients in diffusivities, and a
random component formulated to produce spatial spreading
statistics consistent with the diffusivities. The overall goal
is to
predict the transport path of a bloom once it has been
identified. The
long-term objectives of the transport modeling system
are to maintain a near real-time database for water velocity
fields in the lakes and to provide relatively short-term
predictions (over several days to several weeks) of lake
circulations and transport pathways. Simulations need to be developed
with a short turn-around time, in order to be useful as part of
the monitoring project, and current efforts are directed
at accessing the university's supercomputer for this purpose.
Publications
Prakash, Shwet (2004), "Semi-Lagrangian
Evaluation of Circulation and Transport in Lake Ontario”, M.S.
thesis, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental
Engineering, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY. |
