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Oceanography and Atmospheric Sci.Meteorology

PCTides Validation Test Report

Authors: Pamela Posey; Ruth Preller; Gretchen Dawson; NAVAL RESEARCH LAB STENNIS SPACE CENTER MS OCEANOGRAPHY DIV
Abstract:
The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has built a globally relocatable tide-surge forecast system. Currently, this system runs on a UNIX platform, but was originally designed for PC-based use, and, as such, is referred to as "PCTides." The system is composed of a two-dimensional barotropic ocean model, which is driven by tidal forcing and/or surface wind and pressure forcing. PCTides is applied to the user's area of interest to provide a hindcast or forecast of tidal amplitude, phase and two-dimensional barotropic ocean currents. The PCTides system uses the solutions from a global tide model Finite Element Solutions 99 (FES99) to provide global boundary conditions. The system also contains a 2-min global bathymetry database (the NRL DBDB2 database) to define the model's geometry and bathymetry. Wind forcing for PCTides comes from a number of sources. If the user has access, the Navy's Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS), or the Coupled Ocean & Atmospheric Mesocale Prediction system (COAMPS) may be used. Based on this model, hurricane forcing can be generated that can provide surface pressure and winds to drive the two-dimensional barotropic ocean model and generate a storm surge. One major advantage of PCTides is that the model has the ability to be rapidly relocated to areas of interest. The tidal heights can be generated at a user-specified latitude/longitude position and, therefore, is not dependent on a tidal "look up" table or preexisting database of preselected locations.

Limitations: APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
Description: Memorandum rept.
Pages: 48
Report Date: 10 MAR 2006
Report Number: A435744
Keywords relating to this report:
*OCEAN MODELS
*OCEAN TIDES
*WEATHER FORECASTING
ALGORITHMS
BAROMETRIC PRESSURE
DATA BASES
FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS
GLOBAL
SURGES
TIDAL CURRENTS
VALIDATION
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