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In coastal engineering, as shoaling waves break in shallow water, most wave-breaking research has been focused on depth-induced wave breaking. However, violent wave breaking under storm conditions may be caused by superposition of many shoaling wave components. In order for simulating extreme waves in open ocean, theories to focus wave-packets, assuming that wave speed of each wave component is unchanged during propagation (i.e. deep water or shallower water without bathymetry changes), have been derived, while shoaling effects of the focusing process in shallower waters have not been considered in the previous studies. The extension to shoaling coastal wave-packets may aid in simulating extreme coastal wave breaking under violent storm conditions via laboratory experiments. Here, we derive the general wave-packet focusing conditions for arbitrary water depth. The proposed conditions were used to simulate shoaling wave-packet focusing on flat and sloped bottoms in shallow water experiments for validation purposes. The effects of depth-induced wave breaking in the focusing wave groups are discussed in this paper. The current focusing technique can fully control the focus location and time in wave experiments with an arbitrary bottom structure, which may be useful for further extreme wave research in coastal engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami, run-up of the tsunami along rivers expanded the damaged area into more inland areas far from the coast. High water level in rivers was kept for more than several times of the wave period in the 2011 event, while more simple periodical oscillations of the water level superposed on the tidal motion was observed in the 2010 Chile Tsunami event. The difference of behaviors of tsunami in rivers was discussed with related to the magnitude of tsunami and river mouth morphology through two numerical experiments in this paper. In the first numerical experiments, the run-up of historical tsunamis was simulated along Kitakami River. It was found that the discharge of tsunami flow across the river mouth was proportional to third power of water depth if overflow of the sand spit occurred, and that caused unbalance of water volume coming into and going out from the river channel. Through the second numerical experiment with simple model bathymetry and sinusoidal waves, it was found that discharge during both tsunami run-up and run-down across river mouths is reduced by sand spits at the river mouths and the reduction effect is more significant during flow rushing into the rivers than that during return flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From Tuesday, 16 December 2014, until Thursday, 18 December 2014, Hokkaido was battered by strong winds and high sea waves caused by a passing low pressure system intensified to typhoon levels. In the city of Nemuro, a rise in sea level influenced by the storm surge which exceeded quay height in port areas was observed from predawn Wednesday, 17 December 2014. Flooding was experienced in areas of central Nemuro, the Nemuro Port and estuaries of rivers. This technical note provides a comprehensive meteorological analysis and the results of a local flood survey carried out by the authors from 19 to 21 December 2014, and summarizes the characteristics of the 2014 Nemuro storm surge disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ultrasonic velocity profiler (UVP) acquires instantaneous distributions of axial velocity along the ultrasonic beam emitted from the transducer. In this paper, organizations of the transverse flows over a span of a laboratory wave flume in the surf zone were identified experimentally on the basis of UVP measurements. Ensemble mean divergent and convergent flows were observed over the span of the flume in the surf zone regardless of breaker conditions. By analogy with the flow evolution in a previous computation, by Watanabe and Saeki [1999], we identified that the organization of the wave-breaking-induced counter-rotating vortices determined the spatial and temporal variations in the transverse flows at the early stages of the breaking process regardless of the widths of wave flumes and friction on the sidewalls and bottom. The observed transverse flows were driven by pairs of counter-rotating vortices produced under the breaking waves and the change in the orientation during the passage of breaking waves. The fundamental features of the transverse flows evolving in the breaking process, depending on the breaker type, are discussed statistically to parameterize velocity, time, and length scales of the variations of the transverse velocity. The dimensionless length and time scales had negative linear correlations with the Froude number (defined by relative transverse convection with respect to gravity) as well as a surf similarity parameter, which indicates that the gravity effect associated with the projections of the breaking wave crests defines the primary roller vorticity and shear intensity at the plunging location, resulting in destabilization of the flows in the transverse direction to form organized transverse flow structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A numerical computation of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami was performed to identify fundamental features of the tsunami evolution along the coast of Hokkaido, Japan. Edge waves formed at multiple locations where the refracted tsunami focused, governing local surface oscillations and regional variations in tsunami height along the Pacific coast of Hokkaido. The computation reasonably reproduced the distribution of surveyed tsunami height as well as the time records of surface elevation recorded at ports in Hokkaido. The major features of the frequency spectrum for the 2011 Tohoku tsunami were identical to those for the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake tsunami; inherent local properties of surface oscillation caused by the passage of edge waves existed, determined by the local bathymetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel imaging technique for identifying the locations of free-surface shapes was applied to three-dimensional hydraulic tests of coastal structures. Three-dimensional wave fields, consisting of superposed local reflected and diffracted waves, were measured around a breakwater and the mouth of a model harbor in a laboratory wave basin, and the results are consistent with the predictions of a Boussinesq-type equation model. The new technique was applied to surf zone waves to describe the organized deformation of breaking wave faces that evolve during wave propagation. Typical finger-shaped jets form in the wake of plunging jets, and a local depression trails behind a breaking wave front. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-dimensional large eddy simulation (LES) of wave breaking was carried out. A numerical method for LES is proposed in this paper. The following characteristics of vorticity and velocity field after wave breaking are discussed on the basis of results of the LES: (1) generation and evolution of the widthwise (shore direction) velocity component; (2) transition from a two-dimensional velocity field to a three-dimensional one after wave breaking; (3) evolution process of large-scale eddies comprised by horizontal, vertical and helical eddies; and (4) a coherent eddy structure involving a turbulent bottom and wall boundary layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]