The MIT General Circulation Model (MITgcm) is a numerical computer code that solves the equations of motion governing the
ocean
The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as ''oceans'' (the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Indian, Southern Ocean ...
or
Earth's atmosphere
The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weathe ...
using the
finite volume method
The finite volume method (FVM) is a method for representing and evaluating partial differential equations in the form of algebraic equations.
In the finite volume method, volume integrals in a partial differential equation that contain a divergen ...
. It was developed at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
and was one of the first non-
hydrostatic
Hydrostatics is the branch of fluid mechanics that studies fluids at hydrostatic equilibrium and "the pressure in a fluid or exerted by a fluid on an immersed body". The word "hydrostatics" is sometimes used to refer specifically to water and o ...
models of the ocean. It has an automatically generated adjoint that allows the model to be used for
data assimilation
Data assimilation refers to a large group of methods that update information from numerical computer models with information from observations. Data assimilation is used to update model states, model trajectories over time, model parameters, and ...
. The MITgcm is written in the programming language
Fortran.
History
See also
*
Physical oceanography
Physical oceanography is the study of physical conditions and physical processes within the ocean, especially the motions and physical properties of ocean waters.
Physical oceanography is one of several sub-domains into which oceanography is div ...
*
Global climate model
A general circulation model (GCM) is a type of climate model. It employs a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean. It uses the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamics, thermod ...
References
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External links
The MITgcm home pageDepartment of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science at MITThe ECCO2 consortium
Physical oceanography
Numerical climate and weather models
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