CMS-Flow Salinity Transport
In many estuaries, the density gradients caused by spatial variations in salinity can be an important driving force in the circulation. Salinity is also a key water quality variable in estuaries, since it affects the chemical and biological processes. Salinity is simulated in the Coastal Modeling System (CMS) in a depth-averaged sense. This means that the estuary or body of water is assumed to be well mixed vertically and the salinity is constant over the water column.
The salinity transport equation is solved with an explicit, finite volume method. The advection term is discretized with upwind scheme, and the diffusion term is discretized with the standard central difference scheme.
The CMS-Flow salinity cards are listed in the table below.
| Card | Arguments | Description | Versions |
|---|---|---|---|
| CALC_SALINITY | ON | OFF | Turns salinity on or off | >=v3.75 |
| SALT_OUT_TIMES_LIST | integer | Index of times list of output times | >=v3.75 |
Boundary Conditions
Salinity Initial Condition
| Card | Arguments | Description | Versions |
|---|---|---|---|
| SALINITY_IC | real | Specifies the initial salinity value in ppt for the whole computational domain | >=v3.75 |
| SALINITY_IC_ASCII | character | Specifies the file name of a scatter set file (*.pts) containing the coordiantes and initial salinity values to be interpolated using the Laplacian interpolation | >=4.0 |
Additional information on Salinity Transport in CMS-Flow can be found here.