Abstract
Offline particle tracking (OPT) is a widely used tool for the analysis of data in oceanographic research. Given the output of a hydrodynamic model, OPT can provide answers to a wide variety of research questions involving fluid kinematics, zooplankton transport, the dispersion of pollutants, and the fate of chemical tracers, among others. In this paper, we introduce ROMSPath, an OPT model designed to complement the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS). Based on the Lagrangian TRANSport (LTRANS) model (North et al., 2008), ROMSPath is written in Fortran 90 and provides advancements in functionality and efficiency compared to LTRANS. First, ROMSPath now calculates particle trajectories using the ROMS native grid, which provides advantages in interpolation, masking, and boundary interaction, while improving accuracy. Second, ROMSPath enables simulated particles to pass between nested ROMS grids, which are an increasingly popular tool to simulate the ocean over multiple scales. Third, the ROMSPath vertical turbulence module enables the turbulent (diffusion) time step and advection time step to be specified separately, adding flexibility and improving computational efficiency. Lastly, ROMSPath includes new infrastructure enabling input of auxiliary parameters for added functionality. In particular, Stokes drift can be input and added to particle advection. Here we describe the details of these updates and improvements.
Highlights
Investigation of oceanic processes using particle tracking models is widespread, and applications span several disciplines, 25 including hydrodynamics (Beron-Vera & LaCasce, 2016; Chu et al, 2004), biological/chemical processes (North et al, 2008), pollution transport (Liubartseva, Coppini, Lecci, & Clementi, 2018) and turbulence (Yeung, 2002), to name a few
In order to address the scientific objectives of our research project, we started with the Lagrangian TRANSport (LTRANS) framework and added support for nested hydrodynamic model grids, Stokes drift velocities which are absent from the hydrodynamic model, novel larval behaviour dependent on turbulent and wave motions, and a larval growth model
The ROMSPath OTP output is always closest to the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS) floats output; all results are similar 330 after five days, the discrepancy in LTRANS outputs grows large by 35 days
Summary
Investigation of oceanic processes using particle tracking models is widespread, and applications span several disciplines, 25 including hydrodynamics (Beron-Vera & LaCasce, 2016; Chu et al, 2004), biological/chemical processes (North et al, 2008), pollution transport (Liubartseva, Coppini, Lecci, & Clementi, 2018) and turbulence (Yeung, 2002), to name a few. In order to address the scientific objectives of our research project, we started with the LTRANS framework and added support for nested hydrodynamic model grids, Stokes drift velocities which are absent from the hydrodynamic model, novel larval behaviour dependent on turbulent and wave motions, and a larval growth model. In addition to these features, we modified the LTRANS kernel to improve the accuracy of the computed particle trajectories. 1993; 80 Visser, 1997) set by the user. ∆ X ⃗Xbbbbhaaaaaaaaaa is the displacement associated with non-hydrodynamic motions such as swimming or sinking, of each particle
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