Wind Influence on the Formation of Nearshore Currents in the Southern Baltic: Numerical Modelling Results

A two-dimensional numerical model was used for a simulation of vertical average longshore currents generated by both wind friction and wind-wave action in the nearshore zone. The modelling domain includes the southern part of the Baltic Proper (all boundaries were closed). Wind, uniform in space and varying in time, was the only forcing in the model. The correlation coefficient higher than 0.8 was obtained by model calibration versus the field measurements of currents conducted at the Lubiatowo field station (southern Baltic) during about 1.5 months in 2006. Comparative simulations of total currents including both wind-induced drift and wave components, and of total currents including only a wind-induced drift component, showed that the input of the drift component into currents in the nearshore zone is greater than commonly believed.Wind-induced drift strongly dominates outside the zone of wave transformation, and its input into the total resulting currents remains noticeable even in a zone between the shoreline and the depth of the first wave breaking. Thus, wind-induced drift constitutes up to 50% of the resulting longshore currents for longshore winds and no less than 20% of the longshore component of currents for winds at 45 degrees to the longshore direction.