ROMS Application into Pacific Ocean and US West Coast at JPL

Carrie Zhang and the JPL ROMS Group:Yi Chao, Jei Choi, Peggy Li, Zhijin Li, Xiaochun Wang

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

Collaborators: James McWilliams, Changming Dong, Meinte Blass, Nicolas Gruber, Alexander Shchepetkin, Capet Xavier

Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California at Los Angeles, CaliforniaFei Chai, University of Maine

III. Central California Coastal Ocean: Monterey BayThree-level online embedded ROMS (using AMR) is applied to study the

physical processes in the Monterey Bay (15km->5km->1.5km). An end-to-end database is also developed for real-time data processing, modeling, data assimilation, and operational forecasting. This end-to-end system has been tested during a 1-month long field experiment in August 2003.

II. Pacific Ocean

The current Pacific Ocean model is based on the MPI ROMS version and has a spatial resolution of 50-km and 30 vertical layers. After 100 years spinup forced with monthly climatological air-sea fluxes, a 50-year (1950-2000) simulation has been made forced by daily NCEP-NCAR reanalysis.

Pacific 50-km ROMS: Simulated SSS Variability in the tropical Pacific (Wang and Chao, GRL, 2004)

I. Introduction

The JPL ROMS group, in collaboration with the UCLA ROMS group, has developed a number of ROMS configurations ranging from Pacific Ocean basin-scale to U.S. west coast. Recently, an advanced data assimilation scheme based on the 3-dimensional variational method (3DVAR) is implemented in ROMS. In collaboration with University of Maine, a coupled physical-biological model is also developed. During August 2003, the ROMS and the associated data assimilation system have been tested in a real-time field experiment making nowcast and forecast every 24 hours. Extensive model validations have been conducted. It is expected that both the Pacific Ocean and U.S. west coast ROMS will be in real-time operations in the coming years.

SUMMARY We plan to improve the ROMS configurations off the California coast and transition our real-time demonstration to routine operations making real-time nowcast and forecast for the California coastal ocean. An eddy-permitting ROMS configuration has been developed for the Pacific Ocean at 12.5-km resolution (1520x1088x30) using the MPI code. We are currently spinup this model using the climatological flux on the SGI Altix computer with 128 processes. The results from this high resolution Pacific basin-wide ROMS simulation will be used to study the mesoscale eddy variability and eddy-mean flow interactions as well as to provide the needed boundary conditions for regional ROMS configurations. A regional ROMS configuration for the Prince William Sound in Alaska is currently under construction.

Simulating El Nino-Southern Oscillation

IV. Southern California Coastal OceanFour-level online embedded ROMS (using AGRIF) has been developed to study the physical and biological processes in the Southern California Bight (20km->6.7km->2.1km->0.75km).

Observations ROMS

Temp

SSH

Simulating Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

JPL

DAAC

Ancillary

Data

Data

Retrieval &

Processing

3D Model

Assimilation

COVO

Other NASA

DAACs

Feedback

Non - NASA

Data Centers

Application

Server (GIS)

Research

Server (POET)

SciGIS

Server

JPL

DAAC

Ancillary

Data

Data

Retrieval &

Processing

3D Model

Assimilation

Other NASA

DAACs

Feedback

Non - NASA

Data Centers

Application

Server (GIS)

Research

Server (POET)

SciGIS

Server

Monterey Bay 1.5-km ROMS: Validating ROMS assimilation results against independent mooring observations

Monterey Bay 1.5-km ROMS: Initial results from coupled physical-biological model simulations

SeaWiFS ROMS