Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS)
In the fall of 1995, Hernan G. Arango (hereafter HGA) started working at the Ocean Modeling Lab (OML), Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS), Rutgers University. His first ssignment from OML's group leader Dale B. Haigvogel (hereafter DBH) was to work on the classic baroclinic, wind-driven, double gyre problem with the now-extinct S-Coordinate Rutgers University Model (SCRUM, Song and Haidvogel, 1994), which was derived from SPEM (Semi-spectral Primitive Equation Model; Haidvogel et al., 1991). The double-gyre application is affectionately known as Big Bad Basin (nowadays, BASIN test case) by several OML modelers because of its stability issues in long simulations. After a couple of months of struggling with the BASIN problem, HGA decided to rewrite SCRUM from scratch and modify its numerical kernel, including time-stepping, advection schemes, and implementing a split-explicit treatment coupling between barotropic (fast) and barotropic (slow) governing equations in collaboration with OML's scientists Robert J. Chant and Katherine S. Hedström. In addition, a complete overhaul of the model metadata, input, and output files with NetCDF format. And voilà, the BASIN application ran successfully for several years. The new model became SCRUM version 3.0, which later evolved to SCRUM 4.0 and then becomes the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS). The acronym ROMS was inspired by the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). Thus, at the time, there was a regional numerical model for the atmosphere and ocean with similar acronyms.
ROMS Releases
The following table shows information about the infrequent tagged ROMS releases showing its evolution and expansion. It was redesigned completely starting with version ROMS 2.0 and written in Fortran-1990 standard with modules with the derived-type objects with dynamical allocation, and managed with svn repositories instead of cvs. Some features of Fortran-1995 and Fortran-2003 standards were introduced later when available in mostly all compilers. The perturbation Tangent Linear Model (TLM), finite-amplitude Tangent Linear (Representer) Model (RPM), and adjoint model (ADM) were released in version ROMS 2.3.
Tag Version svn Revision Release Date Number of Files Lines of Code 1.1.0 cvs -r 1.1.0 1999-01-20 125 44,639 1.2.0 cvs -r 1.2.0 1999-01-25 130 46,905 1.3.0 cvs -r 1.3.0 1999-03-15 131 47,931 1.4.0 cvs -r 1.4.0 1999-06-20 146 49,466 1.5.0 cvs -r 1.5.0 2000-02-10 145 56,118 1.6.0 cvs -r 1.6.0 2000-01-29 144 56,066 1.6.1 cvs -r 1.6.1 2000-03-06 144 56,123 1.6.2 cvs -r 1.6.2 2000-03-17 144 56,283 1.7.0 cvs -r 1.7.0 2001-01-19 165 63,652 1.7.1 cvs -r 1.7.1 2001-02-01 165 63,573 1.7.2 cvs -r 1.7.2 2001-04-17 173 66,324 1.8.0 cvs -r 1.8.0 2002-01-11 175 67,999 2.0 2 2003-06-30 232 95,836 2.1 3 2004-05-05 253 117,956 2.2 4 2005-05-26 297 158,176 2.3 8 2007-02-06 1,122 399,457 3.0 36 2007-04-27 1,313 460,643 3.1 166 2008-03-17 1,345 470,110 3.2 338 2009-03-25 1,428 549,318 3.3 432 2009-12-26 1,559 603,578 3.4 550 2011-04-19 1,583 643,878 3.5 568 2011-09-21 1,582 648,098 3.6 656 2013-04-18 1,638 684,351 3.7 974 2019-07-25 1,784 844,948 3.8 995 2020-01-09 1,799 848,245 3.9 1054 2021-03-06 1,909 884,508 4.0 1108 2022-02-25 1,985 1,066,953 current 1123 2022-04-25 1,989 1,079,102
