Brown Bag Seminar by Changsheng Chen, FVCOM: Development, Improvement, and Applications

Please join us for a lunch time seminar about FVCOM, a Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model. A demonstration will be given for updated existing modules and new modules that will be released in the next version of FVCOM. Monday, February 29th, 2016E38-3rd Floor Conference Room12:00 ¤ 1:00pmChangsheng ChenSchool for Marine Science and Technology University of Massachusetts-DartmouthRobert C. BeardsleyDepartment of Physical OceanographyWoods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionOur team of University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researchers has been continuing to develop and improve the prognostic, free-surface, three-dimensional primitive equations-based unstructured-grid, Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) since 1999. The present version 3.2 of FVCOM has become a fully ice-current-wave-sediment coupled model system with options for multi-domain nesting, two-way air-sea interactions and offline or online integration of ecosystem and water quality models. A demonstration will be given for updated existing modules and new modules that will be released in the next version 4.0 of FVCOM. A global-regional-coastal-estuarine-wetland nested FVCOM model system has been developed to resolve and examine the multi-scale oceanic response to climate change. This system features an unstructured grid, finite-volume numerical algorithm with accurate fitting of the complex coastal geometry and resolving spatial scales up to 2 km in the global ocean to 10 m over wetlands. A 37-year hindcast simulation through comparisons with available observational data has validated this nested model system. A demonstration will be given for various ocean problems including the circulation and ice formation/melting in the Arctic Ocean, the tidal and wind-induced currents and mixing in the Gulf of Maine, the shelf-estuarine-wetland interaction over the Massachusetts coast, and the inundation application for Scituate, MA. In 2007, we began to develop the Northeast Coastal Ocean Forecast System (NECOFS). The present NECOFS is an integrated atmosphere-ocean model system in which the ocean model domain covers the northeast US coastal region (the New England Shelf, Georges Bank, Gulf of Maine, and the Scotian Shelf) with a horizontal resolution of 10-15 km in the open ocean, 1-5 km on the shelf, and down to 20 m in estuaries, inner bays, inlets and harbors. The system includes: 1) the community mesoscale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model modified to incorporate the COARE 4.0 air-sea flux algorithm; 2) FVCOM configured for this region (FVCOM-GOM5) with a nested higher resolution FVCOM configured for Massachusetts coastal waters (FVCOM-MASS); 3) the unstructured-grid surface wave model (FVCOM-SWAVE); and 4) storm-induced coastal inundation models. The system produces 3-day forecast fields of surface weather, surface icing, surface waves, water level, 3-D water temperature, salinity, and currents; with daily updating using hindcast data assimilated fields whenever field data are available. This forecast system has been validated for both hindcast simulation over 1978-2014 and forecast operations for storm-induced inundation. Built on successful validation studies, NECOFS is being used by the Northeast regional Weather Forecast Offices for storm-driven coastal inundation, Northeast River Forecast Office for river flooding, U.S. Coast Guard for search and rescue operational planning, NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center for fishery related research, state and local government agencies for coastal zone management, private companies for environmental assessment, and research and education applications. We encourage attendees to bring their lunch to the seminar. The seminar is open to the public. Please pass this announcement along to interested parties. Questions can be sent to KBaltes@mit.edu.