The Nearshore Canyon Experiment (NCEX) 2003

The Nearshore Canyon Experiment (NCEX) was a large collaborative field experiment to examine the effects of abrupt submarine canyon topography on wave transformation, nearshore circulation, and surf zone bathymetry. A detailed description of NCEX and the various research components is available. The thrust of the research conducted by The Ohio State University was to examine the generation, dynamics, and instability of rip currents and their impact on surf zone bathymetric evolution. These goals are being approached collaboratively through a combination of field observations, theoretical development, and numerical modeling. Results of this research will lead to an improved understanding of the generation of rip currents in relation to variations in wave forcing, the impact of rip currents on bathymetric evolution, and increased understanding of data assimilation techniques that lead to improved model performance.

As part of NCEX, we deployed a 9-element shore-based array of video cameras along a 3 km stretch of coastline and collected 45 days of digitized images sampled at 3 Hz. Video particle imaging velocimetry (PIV) techniques were used to obtain estimates of surface currents within and around the surf zone over the extent of the video arrays. Video timestacks (cross-shore transects of video image intensity) spanning the surf zone sampled in time for 12 hours at 3 Hz were recorded every 20 m alongshore and used to identify the space-time variation in wave breaking occurrences that, in turn, are used to estimate spatial maps of the fraction of wave breaking and estimates of the width of the surf zone.

Bathymetry surveys conducted approximately 1-2 times weekly using a GPS-based waverunner survey system were coupled with low-tide GPS-based dolly and vehicle surveys to produce topographic maps of the nearshore out to about 10 m water depths.

All of these data are available through the "Get Data" link on this page.

Questions can be directed to:

Dr. Thomas Lippmann
Ohio State University
Byrd Polar Research Center
1090 Carmack Rd.
Columbus, OH 43210
Tel: 614-688-0080
Email: lippmann.2@osu.edu