RSMAS/MPO Coastal and Shelf Modeling

Caption: Zoom in the ROMS grid showing a cyclonic eddy in the Gulf of Honduras. Vectors show the current direction. Color shows the passive tracer concentration release from 400 watersheds. Color scale is logarithmic.

The model domain is the wider Gulf of Honduras, which encompasses the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula and the northern coast of Honduras (15.5-21.3°N, 89.1-84.3°W). It includes the barrier reef, reef lagoon, and adjacent oceanic waters and uses a 1 km resolution bathymetry from the World Resources Institute (http://www.wri.org/). It is used here as a nature run.

RESOLUTION:

The horizontal resolution of the simulation is 2 km and the model has 25 vertical layers.

FORCING:

Monthly varying surface fluxes (wind, rain, solar, radiative heat fluxes, evaporation) were obtained from the Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Dataset (http://icoads.noaa.gov/) (COADS) climatology.

Tides were set at the boundaries by the TPXO6 global tide model (http://www.esr.org/polar_tide_models/Model_TPXO62_load.html).

APPLICATIONS:

• Terrestrial runoff in waters of the Mesoamerican region
• Fate of fish larvae from spawning aggregation sites

CONTACT:

Laurent Cherubin — lcherubin@rsmas.miami.edu
Claire Paris — cparis@rsmas.miami.edu