Coupling wave and circulation models is vital in order to define shelf, nearshore and inland hydrodynamics during a hurricane. The intricacies of the inland floodplain domain, level of required mesh resolution and physics make these complex computations very cycle-intensive. Nonetheless, fast wall-clock times are important, especially when forecasting an incoming hurricane.We examine the performance of the unstructured-mesh, SWAN+ADCIRC wave and circulation model applied to a high-resolution, 5M-vertex, finite-element SL16 mesh of the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana. This multi-process, multi-scale modeling system has been integrated by utilizing inter-model communication that is intra-core. The modeling system is validated through hindcasts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005), Gustav and Ike (2008) and comprehensive comparisons to wave and water level measurements throughout the region. The performance is tested on a variety of platforms, via the examination of output file J Sci Comput (2012) 52:468-497 469 requirements and management, and the establishment of wall-clock times and scalability using up to 9,216 cores. Hindcasts of waves and storm surge can be computed efficiently, by solving for as many as 2.3 · 10 12 unknowns per day of simulation, in as little as 10 minutes of wall-clock time.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were powerful storms that impacted southern Louisiana and Mississippi during the 2005 hurricane season. In Part I, the authors describe and validate a high-resolution coupled riverine flow, tide, wind, wave, and storm surge model for this region. Herein, the model is used to examine the evolution of these hurricanes in more detail. Synoptic histories show how storm tracks, winds, and waves interacted with the topography, the protruding Mississippi River delta, east-west shorelines, manmade structures, and low-lying marshes to develop and propagate storm surge. Perturbations of the model, in which the waves are not included, show the proportional importance of the wave radiation stress gradient induced setup.

[1] Hurricane Ike (2008) made landfall near Galveston, Texas, as a moderate intensity storm. Its large wind field in conjunction with the Louisiana-Texas coastline's broad shelf and large scale concave geometry generated waves and surge that impacted over 1000 km of coastline. Ike's complex and varied wave and surge response physics included: the capture of surge by the protruding Mississippi River Delta; the strong influence of wave radiation stress gradients on the Delta adjacent to the shelf break; the development of strong wind driven shore-parallel currents and the associated geostrophic setup; the forced early rise of water in coastal bays and lakes facilitating inland surge penetration; the propagation of a free wave along the southern Texas shelf; shore-normal peak wind-driven surge; and resonant and reflected long waves across a wide continental shelf. Preexisting and rapidly deployed instrumentation provided the most comprehensive hurricane response data of any previous hurricane. More than 94 wave parameter time histories, 523 water level time histories, and 206 high water marks were collected throughout the Gulf in deep water, along the nearshore, and up to 65 km inland. Ike's highly varied physics were simulated using SWAN þ ADCIRC, a tightly coupled wave and circulation model, on SL18TX33, a new unstructured mesh of the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and western Atlantic Ocean with high resolution of the Gulf's coastal floodplain from Alabama to the Texas-Mexico border. A comprehensive validation was made of the model's ability to capture the varied physics in the system.

The influence of domain size on boundary condition specification and on computed storm surge response is investigated. Storm surge response along the Florida shelf in the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Kate is examined over three domains using two different open ocean boundary forcing functions, a still water (or zero elevation) condition and an inverted barometer condition which accounts for the atmospheric pressure component of the meteorological forcing. The first domain is relatively small and is situated primarily on the continental shelf in the region of intense storm surge generation. A second domain includes the entire Gulf of Mexico basin. The final domain covers the Gulf of Mexico, contiguous basins, and extends out into the deep Atlantic Ocean. The computed storm surge response indicates that the small domain is inadequate, since cross-shelf boundaries are in regions of significant storm surge generation where surge and therefore boundary conditions are not known a priori. Also, the behavior of resonant modes that are physically excited within the Gulf of Mexico due to the passage of the hurricane is unknown at the boundaries of this small domain. The domain that includes the entire Gulf of Mexico captures the primary storm surge well but may not correctly model resonant modes. In general, these resonant modes are difficult to accurately set up by boundary condition specification, since they may be dependent on interactions between the Gulf and contiguous basins. The primary storm surge response as well as resonant modes excited by the storm are best represented using a domain which encompasses the western North Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. This domain with deep Atlantic Ocean boundaries facilitates simple boundary condition specification and minimizes the influence of boundary conditions on storm surge generation in coastal regions. Basin resonant modes and basin to basin interactions are also captured.

[1] This paper investigates model response sensitivities to mesh resolution, topographical details, bottom friction formulations, the interaction of wind waves and circulation, and nonlinear advection on tidal and hurricane surge and wave processes at the basin, shelf, wetland, and coastal channel scales within the Gulf of Mexico. Tides in the Gulf of Mexico are modestly energetic processes, whereas hurricane surge and waves are highly energetic. The unstructured-mesh, coupled wind-wave and circulation modeling system, SWANþADCIRC, is implemented to generate modeled tidal harmonic constituents and hurricane waves and surge for a Hurricane Ike (2008) hindcast. In the open ocean, mesh resolution requirements are less stringent in achieving accurate tidal signals or matching hurricane surge and wave responses; however, coarser resolution or the absence of intertidal zones decreases accuracy along protected nearshore and inland coastal areas due to improper conveyance and/or lateral attenuation. Bottom friction formulations are shown to have little impact on tidal signal accuracy, but hurricane surge is much more sensitive, especially in shelf waters, where development of a strong shore-parallel current is essential to the development of Ike's geostrophic setup. The spatial and temporal contributions of wave radiation stress gradients and nonlinear advection were charted for Ike. Nonlinear advection improves model performance by capturing an additional 10-20 cm of geostrophic setup and increasing resonant cross-shelf waves by 30-40 cm. Wave radiation stress gradients improve performance at coastal stations by adding an extra 20-40 cm to water levels.