soma

The ocean/soma test group implements variants of the Simulating Ocean Mesoscale Activity (SOMA) test case from Wolfram et al. (2015). From that paper:

The SOMA configuration is designed to investigate equilibrium mesoscale activity in a setting similar to how ocean climate models are deployed. It simulates an eddying, midlatitude ocean basin with latitudes ranging from 21.5° to 48.5°N and longitudes ranging from 16.5°W to 16.5°E. In contrast to previous idealized double-gyre studies…this basin is circular instead of rectangular and features more realistic curved coastlines with a 150-km-wide, 100-m-deep continental shelf.

Appendix A of the paper describes the topography, initial condition and wind forcing.

The implementation of soma in compass includes four test cases: default, long, surface_restoring, and three_layer at 4 resolutions: 4km, 8km, 16km and 32km, and a fifth test case, particles, that is only at 32km resolution. The test cases at all resolutions include initial_state and forward steps, and the particles test case, which also includes particle dynamics, has an extra analysis step. The initial_state begins with a predefined mesh, culls out “land” cells, and defines the initial conditions for the model. The forward step performs a short time integration of the model. The analysis step compares the temperature and salinity at each particle with an analytic solution defining the initial condition.

shared config options

Both soma test cases share the following config options:

# config options for Simulating Ocean Mesoscale Activity (SOMA) testcases
[soma]

# Linear thermal expansion coefficient
eos_linear_alpha = 0.25
# Density difference between surface and bottom waters
density_difference = 5.0
# Surface temperature value used in initial condition
surface_temperature = 20.0
# Surface salinity value used in initial condition
surface_salinity = 34.0
# vertical salinity gradient (PSU/m)
salinity_gradient = 0.0008
# Depth over which majority of initial stratification is placed (m)
thermocline_depth = 300
# Fraction of stratification put into linear profile extending from surface to
# bottom
density_difference_linear = 0.05
# Scale factor controlling width of continental slope. Typically around 0.1
phi = 0.1
# Depth of the continental shelf (m)
shelf_depth = 100
# Depth of the bottom of the ocean for the SOMA test case (m)
bottom_depth = 2500

# the density range and number of surfaces for particles
min_particle_density = 1028.5
max_particle_density = 1030.0
surface_count = 11

The parameters can be altered to change the initial condition or the particle distribution.

default

ocean/soma/<resolution>/default is the default version of the SOMA test case from Wolfram et al. (2015). This test uses 60 unequally spaced layers and does not use surface restoring or include particle dynamics.

../../../_images/soma.png

The test case includes a very short (3 time step) test run and validation of prognostic variables for regression testing.

long

Results in Wolfram et al. (2015) are shown from longer simulations, as provided by the ocean/soma/<resolution>/long test cases. As in the default test cases, this test uses 60 unequally spaced layers and does not use surface restoring or include particle dynamics. Unlike default, this test case is configured for a longer simulation (3 years) potentially appropriate for scientific work.

particles

Wolfram et al. (2015) is focused on diffusion as measured by particle trajectories. For now, most SOMA test cases do not include particles, but we include one test case, ocean/soma/32km/particles, with particles from the Lagrangian, In situ, Global, High-Performance Particle Tracking (LIGHT) framework for regression testing. Otherwise, the particles test case is identical to default. Particle-relate variables are also included in the test-case validation.

surface_restoring

The ocean/soma/<resolution>/surface_restoring test cases are identical to default except that they include restoring of the surface temperature to a prescribed field that varies linearly with latitude.

three_layer

The ocean/soma/<resolution>/three_layer test cases are identical to default except that they have only 3 vertical layers and do not include the continental shelf in the simulation domain.