Princeton Ocean Model

Marine circulation modeling in the Gulf of Naples and adjacent areas

This is a contribution of P. de Ruggiero, E. Napolitano, R. Iacono and S. Pierini. A high-resolution sigma-coordinate primitive equation ocean model (the Princeton Ocean Model) has been implemented in a domain that includes the Gulf of Naples and the nearby gulfs of Gaeta and Salerno.

The model has a horizontal spatial resolution of 1/144° and 40 sigma-levels in the vertical, and takes initial and boundary conditions from a 1/48°-resolution operational circulation model of the whole Tyrrhenian Sea (developed by the ENEA modeling group), which is in turn nested with a coarser resolution model of the Mediterranean Sea circulation (developed in the framework of the EU-MFSTEP project).

In the adopted hierarchical one-way nesting the spatial resolution is scaled by a factor 1/3 at each downscaling. The surface forcing is provided by ECMWF wind data for the hindcasts, but the high-resolution WRF wind data produced by CCMMMA are used in the forecast mode

The model simulates the 3D marine dynamics, providing maps of the sea surface height and of the current velocity, temperature, salinity and density at all depths. Examples of model outputs are shown here.


America’s Cup 2013 marine circulation forecast

A marine circulation forecast was provided for the 2013 America's Cup event held in Naples in April. The initialization and a 7-day forecast for the boundary conditions were provided by the Tyrrhenian Sea model, while the high-resolution CCMMMA-WRF forecast winds were used as surface forcing. The high spatial resolution of the model allows us to visualize the surface currents  over small costal areas.