General plan for adding and testing a model

Overview

This project uses the Coupled-Ocean-Atmosphere-Wave-Sediment Transport (COAWST) modeling system. COAWST includes many model components and uses the Model Coupling Toolkit (MCT) to couple the components together. The primary model components are:

  • the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for the atmosphere

  • the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) model for the ocean

  • the Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) model for ocean surface waves

As a starting point, we will focus on the ROMS component of COAWST. The Ocean and Atmosphere Studies Laboratory provides a user guide for COAWST in which the ROMS section begins on page 53.

General steps

First stage: ensure the basic functioning of the system using synthetic observations.

  1. Compile a single instance of the model that can be used in an observing system simulation experiment (OSSE). This step is covered in depth in the Observing system simulation experiment / perfect_model_obs page.

  2. Generate an ensemble of model states. This step is covered in the Generate an ensemble of initial states page.

  3. Use the synthetic observations from the OSSE to run a test assimilation.

Second stage: attemp to assimilate real observations.

  1. Find a suitable observation converter in the DART repository, as described in the Convert your observations into DART’s obs_seq file format page, or

  2. Write an observation converter for your observations.