About the History of Ocean Modeling

[lalvarez]

Hello Everyone

I have been asked for a "homework" and i´m looking for books or publications (PDF format) in which I could find the "History of Ocean Modeling", When and where did ocean modeling start? Who is considered the father of the ocean modeling? How models have been developed? or the evolution on ocean modeling, Who are the pioneers of ocean modeling? and all this kind of information.

Thanks in advance

Have a nice christmas time

[kate]

Funny you should ask on the ROMS forum. When I got into this business, sigma coordinate models like ROMS were a distant third, after the z-coordinate Bryan-Cox (MOM) type models and the isopycnic (MYCOM) type models.

ETA: Also when I was getting started, my boss had me read through Arakawa and Lamb's paper describing the design of atmospheric models.

[ngarg]

With the amount of recently acquired knowledge, I think history of ocean modelling has something to do with climate model development, where history of climate model starts from the development of Energy balance model(EBM), Radiative convective model (RC) and single column model. Thereby it enters the era of statistical dynamical models. I believe the contribution from people like Jules Charney and Joseph Smagorinsky should have something to do with formulation of primitive equations which really form the basis of most of the current (atmospheric and ocean) models(probably not all models available).

Though, I am novice in the domain of ocean modelling, I guess it is worthwhile looking up. I would certainly agree with Kate that it is strange to ask a question of this sort on ROMS forum.

Hope it was helpful and not off-putting.

nikhil

[andres]

Besides the historical approach, there is some interesting work done in that line on climate models

Knutti, Reto, David Masson, and Andrew Gettelman. "Climate model genealogy: Generation CMIP5 and how we got there." Geophysical Research Letters (2013).

is is based on performance comparison, which should be similar for most related models.

[schmalzrichard]

Please refer to:

Modeling the Oceanic General Circulation by J.C. McWilliams
Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 1966: 28, 215-248.

If you google "the history of ocean modeling", you will find
many interesting sources of information.

Earliest estuarine model that I know of is the "link-node model"
of San Francisco Bay developed by R.P. Shubinski of Water Resources
Engineers, Walnut Creek, CA. A predecessor of RMA Associates.
This model was developed in the 1968-1969.

Professor Hansen in Germany developed a 2D finite difference model, which
was published in 1962.

You may have to do a bit more research on that work.

I hope this helps and best of luck with your studies

[schmalzrichard]

The formal references to the previous post are as follows:

Shubinski, R.P., J.C. McCarty, and M.R. Lindorf, 1965: Computer Simulation
of Estuarial Networks, Journal of the Hydraulics Division, ASCE, September, 33-49.

Hansen, W., 1962: Hydrodynamical Methods Applied to Oceanographic Problems,
Proceedings of the Symposium on Mathematical-Hydrodynamical Methods of Physical
Oceanography, Institut fur Meerskunde der Universitat Hamburg, Hamburg, 25-34.

Note Bruce Parker in his book The Power of the Sea, has a citation for work by
Professor Hansen as follows:

Hansen, W., 1956: Theorie zur Berechnung des Wasserstandes und der Stromungen in
Randmeeren nebst Anwendungen, Tellus, Vol. 8, No. 3, 287-300. (Theory of Computation
of Water Levels and Currents in Coastal Waters)

I hope this helps your historical investigation of early ocean modeling.