A Regional Operational Model for the North East Atlantic: Model Configuration and Validation

Abstract

An operational model for an area of the northeast Atlantic that encompasses all of Ireland’s territorial waters has been developed. The model is an implementation of the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS) and uses operationally available atmospheric and boundary forcing, and a global tide solution for tidal forcing. River forcing is provided by climatological daily discharge rates for 29 rivers across Ireland, west Britain, and west France. It is run in an operational framework to produce 7-day hindcasts once a week, and daily 3-day forecasts which are published in a number of formats. We evaluated the model skill by comparing with measured data and calculating statistics such as mean error, root mean square error (RMSE), and correlation coefficient. The observations consist of satellite Sea Surface Temperature (SST), total surface velocity fields from satellite, water level time series from around the Irish coast, and temperature and salinity data from Array for Real-Time Geostrophic Oceanography (ARGO) and Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) profiles. The validation period is from 1 January 2016 until 31 December 2019. The correlation coefficient between the model and satellite SST is 0.97 and recorded in March and April 2018. The model error is about 5% of the total M2 amplitude in the Celtic Sea recorded at Dunmore East tide gauge station. The maximum RMSE between the model and the CTD temperature profiles is 0.8 °C while it is 0.17 PSU for salinity. The model correctly defines the shelf water masses around Ireland. In 2019 the Irish Coastal Current (ICC) was very strong and well defined along most of the western Irish coast. The model results have well reproduced the ICC front for the whole simulation period.

Long‐term interannual variability in larval dispersal and connectivity of the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) around Ireland: When supply‐side matters

“…Larval retention estimates were lower than reported previously for individual years, 15.8% in 2011 and 14.4% in 2012 (O'Sullivan et al, 2015). Our larval retention estimate for March 16, 2018 (0%) was, however, similar to results in McGeady et al (2019) for March 15, 2018 (0.2%) although the latter used a different ocean model, the Northeast Atlantic Regional Ocean Modelling System model (Nagy et al, 2020). A vertical migration was implemented in both cases.…”

Spatial Variability and Trends of Marine Heat Waves in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea over 39 Years

“…Daily means were computed by averaging hourly data, and a daily climatology was built in the same manner as for SST, using the same period from 1982 to 2020. The wind stress components in east and north directions (τ wx , τ wy ) were calculated according to [33] in (N/m 2 ),…”

Spatial and temporal variability in geomorphic change at tidally influenced shipwreck sites: The use of time‐lapse multibeam data for the assessment of site formation processes

“…Current velocity magnitudes and directions at 1 m above the seabed were obtained for the wreck sites from an operational model run by the Marine Institute of Ireland (Nagy et al, 2020). The model is an implementation of the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS; Shchepetkin & McWilliams, 2005) for an area of the northeast Atlantic encompassing all Irish waters.…”