Multiscale effects in modeling of flows in coastal environments
Clint Dawson
Abstract: The modeling of water circulation in shallow coastal
environments
arises in many applications, including environmental studies and
remediation
of pollution, water quality modeling, and the study of the effects of
storm
surges and the development of protection systems. Recently developed
finite
element models are based on two principles: 1. the use of large domains
to
avoid spurious boundary effects, and 2. the use of highly unstructured
grids
capable of resolving local features and basin to shelf to coastal inlet
transformation scales. In this talk we will discuss the state of the
art in
finite element modeling of coastal environments, present examples of
multiscale effects which arise in these models, and discuss a number of
open
problems.