Research

Global FVCOM

The Global FVCOM is configured using the spherical version of FVCOM with inclusion of the north pole treatment. This model is being tested for a 50 year spin up run under the climatological forcing conditions of equilibrium tidal elevations, surface wind stress/heat flux, river discharges. This model includes the sea ice. The goal of this experiment is to examine how geometric fitting affects the global-scale circulation. A comparison with the structured grid global ocean model will be made after the 50 year spin up run is completed. The global tidal simulation is presented here to provide a brief view how the global FVCOM works.

Model grid: FVCOM-global is configured using Unstructured triangular grid in the horizontal and the generalized terrian-following coodinate in the vertical. The horizontal resolution is ~25-50 km. Total 46 layers are specified in the vertical, with 10 uniform layers respectively in the surface and bottom boundary layers. The run starts running in December with an initial condition of water temperature and salinity interpolated from the world climatological hydrographic field. Total 8 major tidal constituents are included.

Click here or image on the right to view the full-size animation.

3-D view of the world bathymetry: FVCOM development team has collaborated with "ViSiT" development team to make this visualization software implemented into FVCOM for monitoring and postproccessing. It is very easy to draw the 3-D image or create an animation of the global ocean bathymetry. The ViSiT product for the animation of the 3-D world bathymetry is shown here for an example.

Click here or image on the right to view the full-size animation.

Note: animation will be uploded soon.

Global tidal simulation: 8 tidal constituents are included in the tidal simulation. The 3-D model runs very efficiently. With 32-CPU, it only takes a few hours for 100 days' integration. An example given here is the model-predicted co-tidal chart for M2 tide.

Click here or image on the right to view the full-size animation

Animation will be uploaded soon.

More results will be uploaded soon.

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