Back   Home References

Dynamical Models in HOPS

At present, the only dynamical model included with the Harvard Ocean Prediction System is a Primitive Equation (PE) model.

The primitive equations are a simplification of the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid motion in a rotating coordinate system. The simplifying assumptions are:

Hydrostatic Approximation
The hydrostatic approximation neglects all vertical acceleration terms in the vertical momentum equation, except for gravity. This is a "thin fluid" approximation. It is valid when the horizontal length scales of the motion are much larger than the vertical length scales.
Boussinesq Approximation
The Boussinesq approximation replaces the density with its mean value everywhere except for the buoyancy term.

PE

The HOPS PE model is built on the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory primitive equation model. Over the years, the HOPS group has added the following functionality to the original GFDL model:


Dynamical Models

(pub/HOPS)
Directory Files Date
(MM/DD/YYYY)
Size Compressed
(bytes)
Size Uncompressed
(bytes)
PE/ Readme.pe 08/21/2001 93221
pe_9.6.tar.Z 08/21/2001 676568 2634240
Ex_pe_9.6.tar.gz 08/21/2001 66336311 105523712