General Curvilinear Ocean Model: Next Generation (GCOM-NG)

Ocean has a strong impact on the atmosphere and nearly two third of the world’s population live by the coast and their life is affected by the ocean. Therefore, studying the ocean and understanding its human impact is inevitable. The goal of our research project, i.e. “General Curvilinear Ocean Model: Next Generation (GCOM-NG)”, is to deliver a forefront coastal model that will be more accurate and computationally efficient than other available models. GCOM-NG differs in different aspects from other commonly used coastal models. Using general curvilinear coordinate is the most important features of this model. Traditionally, coastal models make use of sigma-coordinate, which cannot represent non-convexity in the vertical and it is well documented that it affects the calculation of different oceanic variables particularly on the steep slopes. Furthermore, the majority of the commonly used ocean models make use of hydrostatic assumption to calculate pressure. Again, in the coastal regions and on the fast varying slopes, this assumption will lead to considerable error in pressure calculation, which affects the entire flow system of the ocean. Moreover, nowadays there is a need on high-resolution ocean models for the detail studies of the different subjects including biogeochemical studies, where hydrostatic assumption will fail in the refined resolutions. This has motivated us to develop GCOM-NG, which uses general curvilinear and non-hydrostatic equation to address today and future needs of oceanography committee and the study of ocean-human impacts.