Numerical Model: Navy Coastal Ocean Model -- 1/60 degree resolution, barotropic.
The model is initialized at rest and integrated from July 8 0:00Z to July 12, 2005 0:00Z.

Model Domain: The Northeastern Gulf of Mexico

Model Forcing: Data from the NHC HWIND fields are objectively gridded to a 1/8 degree resolution field for the entire model domain using the NCEP Reanalysis 2 fields as a background constraint (Morey et al, 2005, JGR-In Press). A quadratic wind-speed dependent drag coefficient is used to derive wind stresses.

Two experiments are run and compared to the model results run for the full Gulf of Mexico domain. For the first experiment, the NE GoM model is run with local winds, similar to a local surge model. In the second experiment, the NE GoM model is embedded (1:1 nest) within the full GoM domain simulation. The NE GoM nest gets open boundary conditions from the larger domain model, but has no local wind forcing. These experiments are designed to isolate the effects of local forcing and remote forcing.

In the following animation, the top panel shows the sea level in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico from the full GoM domain model. The middle panel shows the sea level from the NE GoM model with local wind forcing. The bottom panel shows the sea level from the NE GoM nest within the GoM model with no local forcing. These results demonstrate that the remotely generated sea level anomaly propagating to Apalachee Bay accounted for approximately 1m of the coastal storm surge. The remotely forced sea level signal is locally modified as it propagates through the domain.

S.L. Morey
D.S. Dukhovskoy