The coastal oceans are among the most challenging marine environments in the world. They are subject to the combined geometrical constraints of irregular coastlines and highly variable (steep and tall) bathymetry, and are forced both internally, laterally and surfacially by a complex array of tidal, wind and buoyancy forces on a broad range of space/time scales. The resulting coastal circulation patterns include both persistent and time-variable fronts, intense currents with strong spatial (offshore and/or vertical) dependence, coastal trapped waves, internally generated mesoscale variability, large horizontal water mass contrasts, strong vertical stratification, and regions of intense turbulent mixing in both surface and bottom boundary layers. An extended review of coastal physical processes, which complements the discussion below, is provided by Brink and Robinson (1998).

Haidvogel, D.B., J. Blanton, J.C. Kindle, and D.R. Lynch. 2000. Coastal ocean modeling: Processes and real-time systems. Oceanography 13(1):35–46, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2000.51.

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