TY - JOUR T1 - A Process Study of the Tidal Circulation in the Persian Gulf A1 - Pous,Stephane A1 - Carton,Xavier A1 - Lazure,Pascal AD - LOCEAN/IPSL, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France AD - LPO/IUEM, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France AD - DYNECO, IFREMER, Brest, France UR - https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00284/39520/ DO - 10.4236/ojms.2012.24016 KW - Persian Gulf KW - Barotropic Tide KW - Hydrodynamical Modeling KW - Comparison with Data N2 - A homogeneous shallow-water model with free surface is used to model the tidal circulation in the Persian Gulf. The numerical finite-difference model includes harmonic diffusion of horizontal momentum and quadratic bottom friction, it has a 9 km mesh size and it is forced by 7 tidal components at its southern boundary. High precision bathymetric data are used to obtain the bottom topography. The numerical model is run for more than a year. The results are the following: 1) The model accurately reproduces the tidal phase and amplitude observed at 42 tidal gauges in the region. This accuracy is attributed to the presence of the 7 components which are able to interact nonlinearly; 2) The amphidromic points are also well positioned by the model due to a proper choice of bathymetry. This was checked also with a simpler geometry of the domain; 3) The tidal currents can be strong in the Straits of Hormuz and in shallow areas; thus they will have an effect of the hydrology of the region. The residual currents are weak so that they will be negligible for the large-scale circulation on long periods; 4) Finally, the sea-surface elevation forecast by the model is in close agreement with in-situ measurements of pressure in the Straits, performed during the GOGP99 experiment. Y1 - 2012 PB - Scientific Research Publishing, Inc, JF - Open Journal of Marine Science SN - 2161-7384 VL - 02 IS - 04 SP - 131 EP - 140 ID - 39520 ER -