Nesting nonhydrostatic GCCOM within hydrostatic ROMS for multiscale Coastal Ocean Modeling

The Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) is a hydrostatic free-surface ocean model ideally suited to simulate mesoscale to basin-scale (10 km – 10000 km) ocean processes. The General Curvilinear Coastal Ocean Model (GCCOM) is a nonhydrostatic large eddy simulation (LES) model designed specifically for high-resolution (meters) simulations. In this research, a hybrid model is developed that nests a fine-grid GCCOM model within a coarse-grid ROMS. The nested GCCOM-ROMS model is tested in an idealized flow over a seamount.