COAMPS Model

1. Introduction

Numerical models have been an effective tool in the prediction of many geophysical systems. Processes within the earth's two primary physical systems, the ocean and atmosphere, directly impact weather forecast. Consequently, accurate and efficient prediction on mesoscale is necessity. On the other hand, increased computer power and technological advancements have been improving computational efficiency allowing larger model, with higher resolution, multi-nested grids and complicated physics, to be developed and run for real-time forecasting purposes. To fully utilize modern computer resources and to meet the growing need for high resolution, a three-dimensional Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) has been developed by the Naval Research Laboratory. COAMPS consists of an atmospheric data assimilation system comprising data quality control, analysis, initialization, and nonhydrostatic forecast model components, as well as a hydrostatic ocean model. The models can be integrated simultaneously so that the surface fluxes of heat, momentum, and moisture are exchanged across the air-water interface every time step. At present, we don't have ocean part of COAMPS and only atmospheric model can be run in JSU.