AMICO

AMICO stands for actions towards integrated operational coastal modeling. The project was funded by the French “Ministère de l’Environnement, de l’Energie et de la Mer” in the framework of the COPERNICUS program. During the first phase of the project a novel coupled coastal ocean-wave-atmosphere model framework was developed. It employs the ocean Model for Applications at Regional Scale (MARS3D), the third generation wind and wave model WaveWatchIII (WW3) and the non-hydrostatic mesoscale atmospheric model of the French research community (MesoNH). During the second phase of the project we performed several stand-alone, coupled, and forced runs to evaluate whether, why, and how coupling is necessary in the Iroise Sea where a strong tidal current and an intense seasonal SST front interact with mesoscale weather systems and long fetch waves.

This analysis revealed that shoreward waves can move the Ushant tidal front offshore, i.e. in the opposit direction than the Stokes Drift. This rather counter-intuitive finding is detailed in the Ocean Modelling paper listed below.

Publication:

Brumer, S.E. et al., Impacts of surface gravity waves on a tidal front: a coupled model perspective, Ocean Modelling, 154, 101677. doi: 10.1016/j.ocemod.2020.101677.pdf