Comparative analysis of the performance of the GOFS, PSY4 and AMSEAS ocean model frameworks in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico coastal ocean

ABSTRACT

This work compares the performance of three ocean model frameworks that currently produce outputs of the ocean properties specific to the US Caribbean ocean; the Global Ocean Forecast System (GOFS), US Navy Coastal Ocean Model for the American Seas (AMSEAS) and the Daily Global Physical Bulletin (PSY4). Separate comparisons are done for the ocean properties in the open ocean and nearshore regions. For the open ocean, the model outputs are compared with the AVISO satellite altimetry data for the sea-surface height anomaly (SSHA), the OSCAR data for surface current velocities and the G1SST satellite data for sea-surface temperature (SST). For the nearshore analysis, the model outputs are compared with in-situ buoy measurements and HOBO logger data in the nearshore regions. Our analysis shows that the PSY4 produces the most realistic outputs of SSHA and surface current velocities in the open ocean, whereas all the models produce a strong correlation in terms of the seasonal variability of the surface temperature when compared to the G1SST data. The AMSEAS model, despite being a fine resolution regional model, underperforms in terms of the surface current velocity outputs in the open ocean due to the influence of the simulated submesoscale turbulence on the mesoscale variability. In the nearshore regions, none of the models produce agreeable outputs on the SSHA and current velocities. These findings provide useful insight on the applicability of the model outputs for various operations that require oceanographic data specific to the US Caribbean ocean.

Acknowledgments

The authors also thank CariCOOS for access to useful datasets, Dr. Miguel Canals-Silander at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and Dr. Laurent Chérubin at Florida Atlantic University for their valuable insight.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 https://tds.hycom.org/thredds/catalog.html

2 https://marine.copernicus.eu/

3 https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/weather-climate-models/fnmoc-regional-navy-coastal-ocean

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NSF (National Science Foundation) grant # 1355437: Mare Nostrum Caribbean: Stewardship through Strategic Research and Workforce Development.

Notes on contributors

Sonaljit Mukherjee

Sonaljit Mukherjee, Graduated with M-Tech in Ocean Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, and a PhD in Marine Science and Technology with a specialization in Physical Oceanography from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Joined University of the Virgin Islands Center for Marine and Environmental Studies as a postdoctoral research associate. Currently, an associate research scientist at the Center for Marine and Environmental Studies, UVI.

Sennai Habtes

Dr Sennai Habtes is a Research Assistant Professor of Biological Oceanography at the University of the Virgin Islands. Graduated with a BS in Environmental Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a PhD in Marine Resource Assessment from the University of South Florida.

Paul Jobsis

Paul Jobsis, Graduated with BS in Marine Biology from University of North Carolina Wilmington in 1988 and graduated with a PhD in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego 1998. Post doctoral fellowships at Duke University Department of Cell Biology and National Heart Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Jobsis taught at Loras College for seven years and came to UVI in 2006 after serving as a visiting assistant professor at UVI in 2000.