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The Agulhas System as a Prime Example for the Use of Nesting Capabilities in Ocean Modelling

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High Performance Computing on Vector Systems 2009

Abstract

Today’s ocean modelling faces the challenging question of how small-scale features influence ocean’s larger-scale behaviour. While the latter can be simulated quite reasonably in terms of mean state and long-term variability, it lacks however some spatial precision and high frequent variability, due to a lack of horizontal resolution required to capture energetic features associated with ‘meso-scale’ ocean dynamics. While steady improvements of high-performance computing systems have begun to permit the simulation of such small-scale and high-frequency processes even in global configurations, enormous resources are still required for simulations over extended time spans and necessitate the development of efficient ways of implementation. Using the example of the Agulhas current system, we have used the two-way nesting technique where an eddy-resolving regional model is implanted into a global coarse resolution model to investigate the impact of small scale features in this region on the global ocean circulation variability.

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Correspondence to Markus Scheinert .

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Scheinert, M., Biastoch, A., Böning, C.W. (2010). The Agulhas System as a Prime Example for the Use of Nesting Capabilities in Ocean Modelling. In: Resch, M., Roller, S., Benkert, K., Galle, M., Bez, W., Kobayashi, H. (eds) High Performance Computing on Vector Systems 2009. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03913-3_15

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