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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

A Hierarchy of Global Ocean Models Coupled to CESM1

Abstract We develop a hierarchy of simplified ocean models for coupled ocean, atmosphere, and sea ice climate simulations using the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1). The hierarchy has four members: a slab ocean model, a mixed‐layer model (MLM) with entrainment and detrainment, an Ekman MLM, and an ocean general circulation model (OGCM). Flux corrections of heat and salt are applied to the simplified models ensuring that all hierarchy members have the same climatology. We diagnose the needed flux corrections from auxiliary simulations in which we restore the temperature and salinity to the daily climatology obtained from a target CESM1 simulation. The resulting three‐dimensional corrections contain the interannual variability fluxes that maintain the correct vertical gradients of temperature and salinity in the tropics. We find that the inclusion of mixed‐layer entrainment and Ekman flow produces sea surface temperature and surface air temperature fields whose means and variances are progressively more similar to those produced by the target CESM1 simulation. We illustrate the application of the hierarchy to the problem of understanding the response of the climate system to the loss of Arctic sea ice. We find that the shifts in the positions of the mid‐latitude westerly jet and of the Inter‐tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in response to sea‐ice loss depend critically on upper ocean processes. Specifically, heat uptake associated with the mixed‐layer entrainment influences the shift in the westerly jet and ITCZ. Moreover, the shift of ITCZ is sensitive to the form of Ekman flow parameterization.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1983

A baroclinic quasigeostrophic open ocean model

A baroclinic quasigeostrophic open ocean model is presented, calibrated by a series of test problems, and demonstrated to be feasible and efficient for application to realistic mid-oceanic mesoscale eddy flow regimes. Two methods of treating the depth dependence of the flow, a finite difference method and a collocation method, are tested and intercompared. Sample Rossby wave calculations with and without advection are performed with constant stratification and two levels of nonlinearity, one weaker than and one typical of real ocean flows. Using exact analytical solutions for comparison, the accuracy and efficiency of the model is tabulated as a function of the computational parameters and stability limits set; typically, errors were controlled between 1 percent and 10 percent RMS after two wave periods. Further Rossby wave tests with realistic stratification and wave parameters chosen to mimic real ocean conditions were performed to determine computational parameters for use with real and simulated data. Finally, a prototype calculation with quasiturbulent simulated data was performed successfully, which demonstrates the practicality of the model for scientific use.

Miller, R. N.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Improved Time-Stepping Methods in Global to Regional Ocean Modeling (Annual Status Report)

Time stepping algorithms are an important part of ocean models, and strongly influence both the accuracy of solution and performance. There have been a number of projects investigating various improvements for ocean time-stepping schemes in the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Ocean (MPAS-Ocean), a component of the DOE Energy Exascale Earth System Model. Ocean dynamics include fast surface gravity waves, which are two-dimensional, and slower internal waves, which are three-dimensional, so ocean models use a split time-stepping scheme that separates these barotropic and baroclinic modes for efficiency. MPAS-Ocean runs on variable-resolution horizontal meshes, and must scale to tens of thousands of cores and millions of horizontal gridcells. Ocean models require time stepping algorithms that are customized to these needs, and which are tuned for performance on various resolutions and architectures.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Verification Suite of Test Cases for the Barotropic Solver of Ocean Models

Abstract The development of any atmosphere or ocean model warrants a suite of test cases (TCs) to verify its spatial and temporal discretizations, order of accuracy, stability, reproducibility, portability, scalability, etc. In this paper, we present a suite of shallow water TCs designed to verify the barotropic solver of atmosphere and ocean models. These include the non‐dispersive coastal Kelvin wave; the dispersive inertia‐gravity wave; the dispersive planetary and topographic Rossby waves; the barotropic tide; and a non‐linear manufactured solution. These TCs check the implementation of the linear pressure gradient term; the linear constant or variable‐coefficient Coriolis and bathymetry terms; and the non‐linear advection terms. Simulation results are presented for a variety of time‐stepping methods as well as two spatial discretizations: a mimetic finite volume method based on the TRiSK scheme, and a high‐order discontinuous Galerkin spectral element method. The experimental procedure for conducting these numerical experiments is detailed. It underscores several key considerations that vary depending on the chosen spatial discretization method. Finally, convergence studies of every TC are conducted with refinement in both space and time, only in space, and only in time. The convergence slopes match the expected theoretical predictions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Improved Time-Stepping Methods in Global to Regional Ocean Modeling (Annual Status Report 2020)

Time stepping algorithms are an important part of ocean models, and strongly influence both the accuracy of solution and performance. There have been a number of projects investigating various improvements for ocean time-stepping schemes in the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Ocean (MPAS-Ocean), a component of the DOE Energy Exascale Earth System Model. Ocean dynamics include fast surface gravity waves, which are two-dimensional, and slower internal waves, which are three-dimensional, so ocean models use a split time-stepping scheme that separates these barotropic and baroclinic modes for efficiency. MPAS-Ocean runs on variable-resolution horizontal meshes, and must scale to tens of thousands of cores and millions of horizontal gridcells. Ocean models require time stepping algorithms that are customized to these needs, and which are tuned for performance on various resolutions and architectures.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Experimental design for the Marine Ice Sheet–Ocean Model Intercomparison Project – phase 2 (MISOMIP2)

The Marine Ice Sheet–Ocean Model Intercomparison Project – phase 2 (MISOMIP2) is a natural progression of previous and ongoing model intercomparison exercises that have focused on the simulation of ice-sheet and ocean processes in Antarctica. The previous exercises motivate the move towards realistic configurations, as well as more diverse model parameters and resolutions. The main objective of MISOMIP2 is to investigate the performance of existing ocean and coupled ice-sheet–ocean models in a range of Antarctic environments through comparisons to observational data. We will assess the status of ice-sheet–ocean modelling as a community and identify common characteristics of models that are best able to capture observed features. As models are highly tuned based on present-day data, we will also compare their sensitivity to prescribed abrupt atmospheric perturbations leading to either very warm or slightly warmer ocean conditions compared to the present day. The approach of MISOMIP2 is to welcome contributions of models as they are, including global and regional configurations, but we request standardized variables and common grids for the outputs. We target the analysis at two specific regions, the Amundsen Sea and the Weddell Sea, since they describe two different ocean environments and have been relatively well observed compared to other areas of Antarctica. An observational “MIPkit” synthesizing existing ocean and ice-sheet observations for a common period is provided to evaluate ocean and ice-sheet models in these two regions.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1976

The prediction of sea-surface temperature variations by means of an advective mixed-layer ocean model

An advective mixed layer ocean model was developed by eliminating the assumption of horizontal homogeneity in an already existing mixed layer model, and then superimposing a mean and anomalous wind driven current field. This model is based on the principle of conservation of heat and mechanical energy and utilizes a box grid for the advective part of the calculation. Three phases of experiments were conducted: evaluation of the model's ability to account for climatological sea surface temperature (SST) variations in the cooling and heating seasons, sensitivity tests in which the effect of hypothetical anomalous winds was evaluated, and a thirty-day synoptic calculation using the model. For the case studied, the accuracy of the predictions was improved by the inclusion of advection, although nonadvective effects appear to have dominated.

Atlas, R. M.↗
DOE OSTI2026

The ocean model for E3SM global applications: Omega version 0.1.0 – a new high-performance computing code for exascale architectures

This paper introduces Omega, the Ocean Model for E3SM Global Applications. Omega is a new ocean model designed to run efficiently on high performance computing (HPC) platforms, including exascale heterogeneous architectures with accelerators, such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Omega is written in C and uses the Kokkos performance portability library. These were chosen because they are well-supported and will help future-proof Omega for upcoming HPC architectures. Omega will eventually replace the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Ocean (MPAS-Ocean) in the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). Omega runs on unstructured horizontal meshes with variable-resolution capability and implements the same horizontal discretization as MPAS-Ocean. This work documents the design and performance of Omega Version 0.1.0 (Omega-V0), which solves the shallow water equations with passive tracers and is the first step towards the full primitive equation ocean model. On Central Processing Units (CPUs), Omega-V0 is 1.4 times faster than MPAS-Ocean with the same configuration. Omega-V0 is more efficient on GPUs than CPUs on a per-watt basis – by a factor of 5.3 on Frontier and 3.6 on Aurora, two of the world's fastest exascale computers.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

A modular biogeochemical modeling suite for next-generation ocean models (Final Report)

The Marine Biogeochemistry Library (MARBL) is a self-contained implementation of ocean biogeochemistry suitable for incorporation in Earth system models. The default configuration of MARBL represents multiple nutrient co-limitation (N, P, Si, and Fe), includes three explicit phytoplankton functional groups (diatoms, diazotrophs, and pico/nano phytoplankton), and one implicit group (calcifiers); there is one zooplankton group. MARBL includes fully prognostic carbonate chemistry and simulates sinking particulate organic matter implicitly, subject to ballasting by mineral dust, biogenic mineral carbonate and opal. MARBL represents subgrid-scale variations in light, variable C:P stoichiometry, semi-labile and refractory dissolved organic material pools, prognostic oceanic emission of ammonia, and an explicit ligand tracer that complexes iron. MARBL is fully runtime-configurable, and is flexible enough to accommodate a variable number of plankton functional types and ecosystem configurations. Critically, MARBL is implemented to be independent of any particular ocean general circulation model (OGCM); it is a standalone library that interfaces with an OGCM's via an explicit "driver" layer. MARBL can thus be coupled to multiple OGCM's, enabling efficient maintenance, development, and cross-model inter-comparison. MARBL is the ocean biogeochemistry component for the Community Earth System Model and the DOE’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

Diagnosis of the Marine Low Cloud Simulation in the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM) and the NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS)-Modular Ocean Model v4 (MOM4) coupled model

We present a diagnostic analysis of the marine low cloud climatology simulated by two state-of-the-art coupled atmosphere-ocean models: the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM) and the NCEP Global Forecasting System (GFS). In both models, the shallow convection and boundary layer turbulence parameterizations have been recently updated: both models now use a mass-flux scheme for the parameterization of shallow convection, and a turbulence parameterization capable of handling Stratocumulus (Sc)-topped Planetary Boundary Layers (PBLs). For shallow convection, both models employ a convective trigger function based on the concept of convective inhibition and both include explicit convective overshooting/penetrative entrainment formulation. For Sc-topped PBL, both models treat explicitly turbulence mixing and cloud-top entrainment driven by cloud-top radiative cooling. Our focus is on the climatological transition from Sc to shallow Cumulus (Cu)-topped PBL in the subtropical eastern oceans. We show that in the CESM the coastal Sc-topped PBLs in the subtropical Eastern Pacific are well-simulated but the climatological transition from Sc to shallow Cu is too abrupt and happens too close to the coast. By contrast, in the GFS coupled simulation the coastal Sc amount and PBL depth are severely underestimated while the transition from Sc to shallow Cu is ³delayed² and offshore Sc cover is too extensive in the subtropical Eastern Pacific. We discuss the possible connections between such differences in the simulations and differences in the parameterizations of shallow convection and boundary layer turbulence in the two models.

Xiao, Heng↗
DOE OSTI2025

Water Mass Transformation Budgets in Finite‐Volume Generalized Vertical Coordinate Ocean Models

Water Mass Transformation (WMT) theory provides conceptual tools that in principle enable innovative analyses of numerical ocean models; in practice, however, these methods can be challenging to implement and interpret, and therefore remain under-utilized. Our aim is to demonstrate the feasibility of diagnosing all terms in the water mass budget and to exemplify their usefulness for scientific inquiry and model development by quantitatively relating water mass changes, overturning circulations, boundary fluxes, and interior mixing. We begin with a pedagogical derivation of key results of classical WMT theory. We then describe best practices for diagnosing each of the water mass budget terms from the output of Finite-Volume Generalized Vertical Coordinate (FV-GVC) ocean models, including the identification of a non-negligible remainder term as the spurious numerical mixing due to advection scheme discretization errors. We illustrate key aspects of the methodology through the analysis of a polygonal region of the Greater Baltic Sea in a regional demonstration simulation using the Modular Ocean Model v6 (MOM6). We verify the convergence of our WMT diagnostics by brute-force, comparing time-averaged (“offline”) diagnostics on various vertical grids to timestep-averaged (“online”) diagnostics on the native model grid. Finally, we briefly describe a stack of xarray-enabled Python packages for evaluating WMT budgets in FV-GVC models (culminating in the new xwmb package), which is intended to be model-agnostic and available for community use and development.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Experimental design for three interrelated marine ice sheet and ocean model intercomparison projects: MISMIP v. 3 (MISMIP +), ISOMIP v. 2 (ISOMIP +) and MISOMIP v. 1 (MISOMIP1)

Coupled ice sheet-ocean models capable of simulating moving grounding lines are just becoming available. Such models have a broad range of potential applications in studying the dynamics of marine ice sheets and tidewater glaciers, from process studies to future projections of ice mass loss and sea level rise. The Marine Ice Sheet-Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (MISOMIP) is a community effort aimed at designing and coordinating a series of model intercomparison projects (MIPs) for model evaluation in idealized setups, model verification based on observations, and future projections for key regions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Here we describe computational experiments constituting three interrelated MIPs for marine ice sheet models and regional ocean circulation models incorporating ice shelf cavities. These consist of ice sheet experiments under the Marine Ice Sheet MIP third phase (MISMIP+), ocean experiments under the Ice Shelf-Ocean MIP second phase (ISOMIP+) and coupled ice sheet-ocean experiments under the MISOMIP first phase (MISOMIP1). All three MIPs use a shared domain with idealized bedrock topography and forcing, allowing the coupled simulations (MISOMIP1) to be compared directly to the individual component simulations (MISMIP+ and ISOMIP+). The experiments, which have qualitative similarities to Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf and the adjacent region of the Amundsen Sea, are designed to explore the effects of changes in ocean conditions, specifically the temperature at depth, on basal melting and ice dynamics. In future work, differences between model results will form the basis for the evaluation of the participating models.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

MPAS-Ocean Model User's Guide Version 6.0

The Model for Prediction Across Scales-Ocean (MPAS-Ocean) is an unstructured-mesh ocean model capable of using enhanced horizontal resolution in selected regions of the ocean domain. Model domains may be spherical with bottom topography to simulate the earth’s oceans, or on Cartesian domains for idealized experiments.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

The interpretation of temperature and salinity variables in numerical ocean model output and the calculation of heat fluxes and heat content

Abstract. The international Thermodynamic Equation of Seawater 2010 (TEOS-10) defined the enthalpy and entropy of seawater, thus enabling the global ocean heat content to be calculated as the volume integral of the product of in situ density, ρ, and potential enthalpy, h0 (with reference sea pressure of 0 dbar). In terms of Conservative Temperature, Θ, ocean heat content is the volume integral of ρcp0Θ, where cp0 is a constant “isobaric heat capacity”. However, many ocean models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) as well as all models that contributed to earlier phases, such as CMIP5, CMIP3, CMIP2, and CMIP1, used EOS-80 (Equation of State – 1980) rather than the updated TEOS-10, so the question arises of how the salinity and temperature variables in these models should be physically interpreted, with a particular focus on comparison to TEOS-10-compliant observations. In this article we address how heat content, surface heat fluxes, and the meridional heat transport are best calculated using output from these models and how these quantities should be compared with those calculated from corresponding observations. We conclude that even though a model uses the EOS-80, which expects potential temperature as its input temperature, the most appropriate interpretation of the model's temperature variable is actually Conservative Temperature. This perhaps unexpected interpretation is needed to ensure that the air–sea heat flux that leaves and arrives in atmosphere and sea ice models is the same as that which arrives in and leaves the ocean model. We also show that the salinity variable carried by present TEOS-10-based models is Preformed Salinity, while the salinity variable of EOS-80-based models is also proportional to Preformed Salinity. These interpretations of the salinity and temperature variables in ocean models are an update on the comprehensive Griffies et al. (2016) paper that discusses the interpretation of many aspects of coupled Earth system models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1991

Biological production models as elements of coupled, atmosphere-ocean models for climate research

Process models of phytoplankton production are discussed with respect to their suitability for incorporation into global-scale numerical ocean circulation models. Exact solutions are given for integrals over the mixed layer and the day of analytic, wavelength-independent models of primary production. Within this class of model, the bias incurred by using a triangular approximation (rather than a sinusoidal one) to the variation of surface irradiance through the day is computed. Efficient computation algorithms are given for the nonspectral models. More exact calculations require a spectrally sensitive treatment. Such models exist but must be integrated numerically over depth and time. For these integrations, resolution in wavelength, depth, and time are considered and recommendations made for efficient computation. The extrapolation of the one-(spatial)-dimension treatment to large horizontal scale is discussed.

Platt, Trevor↗
NASA NTRS1991

Nested ocean models: Work in progress

The ongoing work of combining three existing software programs into a nested grid oceanography model is detailed. The HYPER domain decomposition program, the SPEM ocean modeling program, and a quasi-geostrophic model written in England are being combined into a general ocean modeling facility. This facility will be used to test the viability and the capability of two-way nested grids in the North Atlantic.

Perkins, A. Louise↗
DOE OSTI2013

Incorporation of the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) into the Community Climate System Model (CCSM): Evaluation and Climate Applications (Final Report for DOE Grant DE-FG02-07ER64470)

The primary goal of the project entitled “Incorporation of the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) into the Community Climate System Model (CCSM): Evaluation and Climate Applications” was to systematically investigate the performance of the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) as an alternative oceanic component of the NCAR’s Community Climate System Model (CCSM). We have configured two versions of the fully coupled CCSM3/HYCOM: one with a medium resolution (T42) Community Atmospheric Model (CAM) and the other with higher resolution (T85). We have performed a comprehensive analysis of the 400-year fully coupled CCSM3/HYCOM simulations and compared the results with those from CCSM3/POP and with climatological observations, and also we have performed tuning of critical model parameters, including Smagorinsky viscosity, isopycnal diffusivity, and background vertical diffusivity. The analysis shows that most oceanic features are well represented in the CCSM3/HYCOM. The coupled CCSM3/HYCOM (T42) has been integrated for 400 years, and the results have been archived and transferred to the High Performance Computer in the Florida State Univesity. In the last year, we have made comprehensive diagnostics of the long-term simulations by the comparison with the original CCSM3/POP simulation and with the observations. To gain some understanding of the model biases, the mean climate and modes of climate variability of the two models are compared with observations. The examination includes the Northern and Southern Annular Modes (NAM and SAM), the Pacific-North-American (PNA) pattern, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and the main Southern Ocean SST mode. We also compared the performance of ENSO simulation in the coupled models. This report summarizes the main findings from the comparison of long-term CCSM3/HYCOM and CCSM3/POP simulations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗