Global coastal-ocean modelling.

该项目涉及开发一个模型系统，以系统和有效的方式同时模拟世界各地的所有陆架海。大陆架海位于陆地和深海之间，通常深度不到500米，是生物高度生长的区域;虽然它们只占世界海洋面积的7%，但它们占浮游植物（微型植物）总生长量的四分之一。这意味着它们有可能对海洋吸收、运输和储存大气二氧化碳（一种主要的温室气体）的能力作出重大贡献。我们估计这种影响的一些最好的工具是全球海洋环流模型，以及生态系统模型。这些模式必须在粗分辨率网格上工作，由于陆架海面积小、深度浅和海岸线复杂，这些网格的分辨率往往很差（在水平和垂直方向），或者在这些全球模拟中完全不存在。该项目旨在通过开发一个建模系统来解决我们模拟地球系统能力的这一缺陷，该系统允许在全球范围内直接模拟陆架海，以进行持续数十年的模拟。自科学计算出现以来，一直在开发模拟个别陆架海（例如北海）的复杂模型，这些模型现已达到成熟状态，能够相当准确地模拟海洋环境的若干方面（例如潮汐误差在20厘米以内，表面温度优于1 ℃）。这些三维模型已耦合到复杂的生态系统模型，再现了许多陆架海浮游植物生长的特点。这些都为全球沿海-海洋模拟系统提供了坚实的基础。世界各地的大陆架海被分成许多孤立的区域，仅由深海连接，例如美国东部海岸的海洋仅通过大西洋与欧洲和北欧海相连。这使得陆架海的模拟非常适合基于网格的计算，反映了这种地理：每个区域都在一个单独的计算机系统上进行模拟，每个区域都使用相同的全球环流模型交换信息。我们的目标是开发现有的建模系统，使其能够在网格计算机网络上有效地运行，从广泛的强制和验证来源交换信息，并以易于访问的方式整理模型输出。最终产品将是对陆架海对全球碳预算贡献的新估计。

This project involves the development of a modelling system to simulate all the shelf seas around the world simultaneously in a systematic and efficient way. The shelf seas lying between the land and the deep ocean are typically less than 500 m deep and regions of high biological growth; although they occupy only 7% of the area of the world's oceans they account for about a quarter of the total growth of phytoplankton (microscopic plants). This means that they have the potential to make a large contribution to the oceans ability to absorb, transport and store atmospheric carbon dioxide (a major greenhouse gas). Some of the best tools we have for estimating this impact are global circulation models of the oceans, coupled to models of the ecosystems. These models necessarily work on coarse resolution grids and because of the small size, shallow depths and complicated coastlines of shelf seas they are often very poorly resolved (in the horizontal and vertical) or absent altogether from these global simulations. This project aims to address this shortcoming in our capability to model the Earth System by developing a modelling system that allows shelf seas to be directly modelled on global scales for simulations that lasting 10s of years. Sophisticated models for simulating individual shelf seas (for example the North Sea) have been under development since the advent of scientific computing and have now reached a state of maturity such that they can simulate a number of aspects of the marine environment with considerable accuracy (for example tides to within 20 cm and surface temperature to better than 1°C). These three dimensional models have been coupled to complex ecosystem models which reproduce many of the characteristics of shelf sea phytoplankton growth. Together these provide a well founded basis for a global coastal-ocean modelling system. The shelf seas around the world are separated into a number of isolated regions connected only by the deep ocean, for example the seas on the eastern US sea board are only connected to the European and Nordic Seas by the Atlantic Ocean. This makes the simulations of shelf seas ideally suited to Grid based computing that mirrors this geography: Each region is simulated on a separate computer system, each exchanging information with the same global circulation model. Our aim is to develop the existing modelling system in such a way that it can operate efficiently on a Grid computer network, exchanging information from a wide range of forcing and verification sources and collating the model output in a readily accessible way. The final product will be a new estimate of the shelf seas contribution to the global carbon budget.