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Global Climate
The earths climate is determined by the complex interaction
of many physical systems including the ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere.
There is a growing concern that human activities (such as increasing greenhouse
gases, introducing ozone-depleting chemicals, and deforestation) could
alter these interactions and significantly change our current climate.
However, these concerns have been very difficult to address due to our
limited understanding of each of the isolated physical systems, much less
the fully coupled climate system.
Performing realistic computer simulations of the global ocean is difficult
because the ocean contains both relatively small spatial scales (tens
of kilometers for energetic eddies) and long time scales (many centuries
for the deep ocean circulation). The ocean general circulation model (OGCM),
called POP (Parallel Ocean Program) [Dukowicz et al, 1993]
[Smith et al, 1992], was developed to take advantage of
parallel computer architectures and to perform the highest resolution
global ocean simulations ever undertaken.
POP is a descendant of the Bryan-Cox OGCM which has been successful in
simulating a wide range of ocean flows. The earlier model has been substantially
improved and adapted for use with massively parallel computers. Improvements
include a surface-pressure formulation that allows a much more realistic
representation of land masses and ocean-bottom topography, an implicit
free-surface technique that lets the air-sea interface evolve freely [Dukowicz,
1994], and the ability to use any locally orthogonal horizontal grid which
easily allows the Arctic ocean to be included in simulations without the
problems associated with the convergence at the North Pole.
High-resolution simulations, using POP, of the global ocean on 512 nodes
of the Thinking Machines CM-5 computer at Los Alamos gives a horizontal
resolution from 30 km near the equator to 7 km at the poles. Estimates
of the true atmospheric winds from 1985 to 1994 are used to force the
model.
Los Alamos Global Climate Projects
All of the filled circles are linkable projects.
All of the empty circles are navigational guides.
Questions? Contact us!
This is from "The Legacy and Future of CFD at Los Alamos"
(LAUR#LA-UR-1426)(365Kb pdf file)
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Contacts
Mark Schraad
Group Leader
schraad@lanl.gov
Beverly Corrales
Office Administrator
Crystal Martinez
Office Administrator
Mail Stop B216
(505) 667-4156 (Voice)
(505) 665-5926 (Fax)
t3grpofc@lanl.gov
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