1996 POM96 Users Group Meeting takes place in Princeton, June 10-12.
In 1974, Alan Blumberg came to Princeton under the GFDL funded, Visiting Scientist Program. From his Chesapeake Bay modeling experience and my turbulent boundary layer experience, there emerged - painfully at first - a three-dimensional, numerical ocean model. Model architectural decisions were made, based on our perception of the needs of small scale model domains; the model would need to simulate surface and bottom boundary layers, the latter to create tidal mixing and bottom drag; it would have to handle tides in the first place and it would need to respond to surface fluxes, all in the presence of complex topography. Development of the model continued at Dynalysis of Princeton, at Princeton University and GFDL until it became clear that, given sufficient computer resources, the model was capable of solving a lot of problems. Through the years there has been polishing and extensions, but the basic architecture remains the same. Now, it may seem surprising to some, and not to others, that the attributes of the model, conceived with small scale ocean dynamics in mind, also apply to large scale ocean basins. The bottom boundary layer may be important! Tides may be important!
The talk fills in some details of the model's history between 1974 and 1996. The discussion includes the topics of model error and bottom topography.