ROMS model application south of Africa

The ROMS model is applied to the oceans south of Africa in order to investigate the oceanic processes and the variability of these processes which impact the biogeochemistry of the region. Immediately off southern Africa, physical processes of the shallow Agulhas Bank may have impacts on the chokka squid and on the spawning of anchovy. The ROMS configuration over the Agulhas Bank shows that the Agulhas Current plays a dominant role in the circulation and vertical structure over much of the shelf. South of this region, the dynamics of the upper layer of Southern Ocean are explored with the eventual goal of studying the biogechemical cycle. The Southern Ocean region is important as a sink for atmospheric carbon particularly that of anthropogenic origin. Changes to the forcing and/or upper ocean dynamics will impact this through the solubility and biological pump. Important processes in the region are related to eddies and fronts which are investigated. The modelling approach to address the disparity of scales in the region is to configure a larger domain to support fine-scale nested model over localized regions of interest.