Non-hydrostatic Ocean General Circulation Models

The tendency for human to operate in deeper waters, the increasing awareness of coastal and marine management, and the necessity for accurate parameterisations of unresolved processes in climate models have moved the process studies performed with Ocean General Circulation Models (OGCMs) to higher and higher resolution. The vast majority of these studies are made with models using the hydrostatic approximation. As the resolution reaches kilometer scale, or for processes with large vertical velocity, this assumption is no longer valid. Hence, there is a need for a new generation OGCMs with non-hydrostatic capabilities. To be able to validate and compare the different models that will be developed there is also a need to establish a collection of benchmark s, as is already in place for hydrostatic models. The proposed project aims to develop the world's first validated non-hydrostatic terrain-following OGCM. This is achieved by implementing an accurate and efficient elliptic solver, with good scaling pro perties for parallel computation, in the Bergen Ocean Model. Once established the model will be used, together with the z-coordinate MITgcm, to initiate a family of benchmarks studies for non-hydrostatic models. This latter task will be done in cooperat ion with leading international groups in ocean process modeling. The project will confirm the international position that the University of Bergen has in ocean process studies. The project will also strengthen the good collaboration between the Departm ent of Applied Mathematics at the University of Bergen and the Bergen Center for Computational Science. The software developed during the project will be made publicly available through a dedicated web page.