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SEBSCC Physical Modeling Results 1998

Welcome to the Bering Sea physical model results page!

Our basic approach involves coupling a global circulation model to a regional circulation model of the Southeast Bering Sea which includes BOTH tidal and subtidal dynamics. We performed these simulations on the CRAY J90 supported by the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center. Here's an overview with graphics of our results so far:
Some of the model results have been animated.

 

*******NEW FEATURE - VIRTUAL REALITY********

Using output from the regional model of the Southeast Bering Sea and the Virtual Reality Markup Language we have generated a virtual ocean, containing model bathymetry with sea surface height and temperature for May 15, 1997. The surface representing the sea floor is colored by the depth (red is shallow, blue is deeper). Hovering above it is a surface representing the low-pass-filtered sea surface height (no tides) colored by the temperature at 10m depth (blue is cold, red is hot). The spiky protrusions out of the sea surface are islands (the Aleutian chain along the southern edge, the Pribolofs towards the north). Most web browsers now come equipped with a VRML viewer which allows you to fly around these surfaces; if you need a viewer try here. If you can't view the virtual ocean in this way, here's a simple screen snapshot to give you an idea of how it looks. Note that the bathymetry used in this world is smoothed relative to the real thing and spans 50m-1000m depths (it is in fact the bathymetry used by the regional model at present). Flying around these surfaces gives you a nice sense of the submarine canyons, and the large-to-small scale eddies in the sea surface. The axes represent northeast(red), northwest(green) and downward (blue) directions. When you first enter this world you will be looking to the southeast; Pribolof canyon is the major bathymetric feature directly ahead.

Development work for Virtual Reality at PMEL is funded by the NOAA/HPCC program. Thanks to Chris Moore and Nancy Soriede for their guidance on using VRML.


A few notes on biological modeling:

If you're interested in physical-biological model coupling, you could read a recently accepted paper describing how we coupled a lower trophic level (NPZ) model, an individual-based (IBM) fish model, and a circulation model in the Gulf of Alaska. We hope to implement this general NPZ-IBM-circulation modeling approach in the Bering Sea.