Global coastal-ocean modelling.

该项目涉及开发一个模拟系统，以系统和有效的方式同时模拟世界各地的所有陆架海。位于陆地和深海之间的陆架海通常不到500米深，是生物高度增长的区域；尽管它们只占世界海洋面积的7%，但它们约占浮游植物(微型植物)总增长的四分之一。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(一种主要温室气体)的能力做出巨大贡献。我们拥有的一些最好的工具来估计这种影响是海洋的全球循环模型，再加上生态系统的模型。这些模式必须在分辨率较低的网格上工作，而且由于陆架海的小尺寸、浅深度和复杂的海岸线，它们往往分辨率很差(在水平和垂直方向上)，或者完全没有出现在这些全球模拟中。该项目旨在解决我们模拟地球系统能力方面的这一缺陷，方法是开发一种模拟系统，使大陆架海洋能够在全球范围内直接模拟，以进行持续10多年的模拟。自科学计算出现以来，一直在开发用于模拟个别陆架海(例如北海)的复杂模型，目前已达到成熟状态，可以相当准确地模拟海洋环境的许多方面(例如潮汐到20厘米以内，表面温度好于1摄氏度)。这些三维模型与复杂的生态系统模型相结合，再现了陆架海洋浮游植物生长的许多特征。这些因素共同为全球沿海-海洋模式系统奠定了坚实的基础。世界各地的陆架海被分成许多孤立的区域，只有深海相连，例如美国东部海板上的海只通过大西洋与欧洲和北欧海相连。这使得对陆架海的模拟非常适合基于网格的计算，这种计算反映了这种地理位置：每个地区都在一个单独的计算机系统上进行模拟，每个地区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模拟系统，使其能够有效地在网格计算机网络上运行，交换来自各种强迫和核查来源的信息，并以一种易于访问的方式核对模型输出。最终的结果将是对大陆架海对全球碳预算的贡献的新估计。

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.