Wave-currents interaction in the Black Sea: new modelling approach for next generation of operational forecasting system.

This study analyzes wave-currents interactions in the Black Sea basin focusing on deep water processes by using a coupled two-ways off-line numerical system, based on the ocean circulation model NEMO v4.0 and the third-generation wave model WaveWatchIII v5.16. The coupling between wave and hydrodynamical models is carried out at hourly frequency. The physical processes taken in consideration are: Stokes-Coriolis force, sea-state dependent momentum flux, wave induced vertical mixing, Doppler shift, and the stability parameter for the computation of effective wind speed. 

The hydrodynamical model is implemented over the Black Sea at the horizontal resolution of about 3km and 31 vertical levels, with closed boundary at the Bosporus Strait. The impact of the Bosporus Strait on the Black Sea dynamics is modeled using a surface boundary condition, taking into account the barotropic transport, which balances the freshwater fluxes on monthly basis (Stanev and Beckers, 1999; Peneva et al., 2001; Ciliberti et al., 2021). Additionally, Mediterranean waters inflow is represented by applying a local damping to high resolution temperature and salinity profiles (Aydogdu et al., 2018) at the Bosporus exit.

The wave model adopts the WW3 implementation of the WAM Cycle4 model physics, with Ultimate Quickest propagation scheme and GSE alleviation, over the same spatial grid as the hydrodynamical model Wind input and dissipation are based on Ardhuin et al. (2010), wave-wave interactions are based on Discrete Interaction Approximation. The wave spectrum is discretized using 24 directional sectors, and 30 frequencies, with 10% increment starting from 0.055Hz. Validation and statistical analysis of the results have been carried out to compare coupled and uncoupled runs, aiming to identify the model set-up to upgrade in the future the near real time operational system.

The evaluation of the coupling impact on significant wave height and temperature shows BIAS reduction, and even slight improvement of RMSE.