Nature of the tide induced flow field along the East Coast of India

The objective of the present study is to simulate the tide induced flow field in the Bay of Bengal (BOB) using MIKE 21 HD module of DHI. Later these currents that were measured in the coastal region between Kodikarai in Tamilnadu and Digha in West Bengal along the East Coast of India close to nearly 50 m water depth were also compared with that of the simulated. Between Nagapattinam (Lat. 10.76o N) and Paradip (Lat. 20.26o N), over a distance of nearly 1000 km (~10o of latitude), the tides propagate from deep water to the coast with their fronts nearly parallel to the coast. The variation of the tidal ranges between Nagapattinam to Paradip was found to be from 0.62 m to 1.87 m. The simulated current magnitudes in BOB were observed to increase slowly from south to north (i.e. 0.075 m/s at Nagapattinam to 0.249 m/s at Paradip), as the magnitudes of M2 and S2 tidal constituents increase from Nagapattinam to Paradip. The highest tidal currents of the order of 0.4 m/s were found at the Head of the Bay. Similarly, the directions of tide induced currents during the flood and the ebb phases of tides were observed to remain almost same at all stations from Nagapattinam to Paradip along the ECI.