Wind-induced circulations of the Black Sea

Abstract

A two-dimensional single layer hydrodynamic model of the Black Sea is constructed in which currents are driven by the forcing effect of the wind. An explicit finite difference scheme was used where the equations were discretized over a 128 x 79 non-staggered grid. To represent the seasonal wind patterns the sea is divided into 14 sectors and for each season the dominating wind in each sector was selected. The model incorporating the sectoral wind patterns was applied to all of the four seasons. The results successfully simulate some of the well known circulation patterns in the sea.