FEMA Region III Coastal Storm Surge Study (page 7 crop)

The ADCIRC model is a high-performance, cross-platform numerical

ocean circulation model Ocean general circulation models (OGCMs) are a particular kind of general circulation model to describe physical and thermodynamical processes in oceans. The oceanic general circulation is defined as the horizontal space scale and time scale large ...

popular in simulating

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...

tides Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables can ...

, and coastal circulation problems.http://adcirc.org/
ADCIRC official website. Retrieved on 27 April 2018. Originally developed by Drs. Rick Luettich and Joannes Westerink, the model is developed and maintained by a combination of academic, governmental, and corporate partners, including the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

, the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

, and the

US Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

. The ADCIRC system includes an independent multi-algorithmic wind forecast model and also has advanced coupling capabilities, allowing it to integrate effects from sediment transport, ice, waves,

surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when th ...

, and baroclinicity.

Access

The model is free, with source code made available by request via the website, allowing users to run the model on any system with a Fortran compiler. A pre-compiled

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

version of the model can also be purchased alongside the

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

software. ADCIRC is coded in Fortran, and can be used with native

binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1) * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical operation that t ...

, text, or netCDF file formats.

Capabilities

The model formulationADCIRC Theory Report
Dead link. Retrieved on 27 April 2018. is based on the shallow water equations, solving the

continuity equation A continuity equation or transport equation is an equation that describes the transport of some quantity. It is particularly simple and powerful when applied to a conserved quantity, but it can be generalized to apply to any extensive quantity. S ...

(represented in the form of the Generalized Wave Continuity Equation) and the momentum equations (with advective,

Coriolis Coriolis may refer to: * Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (1792–1843), French mathematician, mechanical engineer and scientist * Coriolis force, the apparent deflection of moving objects from a straight path when viewed from a rotating frame of referen ...

eddy viscosity The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the inte ...

, and

surface stress Surface stress was first defined by Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839-1903) as the amount of the reversible work per unit area needed to elastically stretch a pre-existing surface. A suggestion is surface stress define as association with the amount of ...

terms included). ADCIRC utilizes the finite element method in either three-dimensional or two-dimensional depth-integrated form on a triangular unstructured grid with

Cartesian Cartesian means of or relating to the French philosopher René Descartes—from his Latinized name ''Cartesius''. It may refer to: Mathematics *Cartesian closed category, a closed category in category theory *Cartesian coordinate system, modern ...

or spherical coordinates. It can run in either

barotropic In fluid dynamics, a barotropic fluid is a fluid whose density is a function of pressure only. The barotropic fluid is a useful model of fluid behavior in a wide variety of scientific fields, from meteorology to astrophysics. The density of most ...

or baroclinic modes, allowing inclusion of changes in water density and properties such as salinity and temperature. ADCIRC can be run either in serial mode (e.g. on a personal computer) or in parallel on supercomputers via

MPI MPI or Mpi may refer to: Science and technology Biology and medicine * Magnetic particle imaging, an emerging non-invasive tomographic technique * Myocardial perfusion imaging, a nuclear medicine procedure that illustrates the function of the hear ...

. The model has been optimized to be highly parallelized, in order to facilitate rapid computation of large, complex problems. ADCIRC is able to apply several different bottom friction formulations including

Manning's n The Manning formula or Manning's equation is an empirical formula estimating the average velocity of a liquid flowing in a conduit that does not completely enclose the liquid, i.e., open channel flow. However, this equation is also used for calculat ...

-based bottom drag due to changes in land coverage (such as forests, cities, and seafloor composition), as well as utilize atmospheric forcing data (wind stress and atmospheric pressure) from several sources, and further reduce the strength of the wind forcing due to

surface roughness Surface roughness, often shortened to roughness, is a component of surface finish (surface texture). It is quantified by the deviations in the direction of the normal vector of a real surface from its ideal form. If these deviations are large, ...

effects. The model is also able to incorporate effects such as time-varying topography and bathymetry, boundary fluxes from rivers or other sources, tidal potential, and sub-grid scale features like levees. ADCIRC is frequently coupled to a wind wave model such as STWAVE
SWAN
or WAVEWATCH III, especially in storm surge applications where wave radiation stress can have important effects on ocean circulation and vice versa. In these applications, the model is able to take advantage of tight coupling with wave models to increase calculation accuracy.

References

External links

ADCIRC official website
{{Atmospheric, Oceanographic and Climate Models Physical oceanography Water waves Numerical climate and weather models Computational science Computational fluid dynamics science software Scientific simulation software