A data-driven modeling system that reconstructs oceanic circulation of the Red Sea highlights the importance of developing region-specific historical datasets.
By incorporating fine-grained regional data with a high-resolution ocean model, KAUST researchers have developed the first precise historical reconstruction of the Red Sea circulation.[1] The resulting reanalysis reveals new characteristics of current circulation, temperature, salinity and oceanic behavior that are not evident in the coarser standard global ocean analyses.
“Currently, industry and scientists rely on global ocean datasets that do not resolve the characteristics of the regional seas,” says climatologist Ibrahim Hoteit, who led the research team. “This can carry significant financial and scientific implications.”
Existing global ocean models use coarse modeling grids and are tuned to describe global circulations, and so are unable to generate accurate analyses of ocean phenomenon at smaller regional scales. One key reason for this is the enormous amount of computation required for even coarse global models, which makes it difficult to increase their resolution.
Read more at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST)
Image: Sivareddy Sanikommu's study highlights the importance of generating accurate regional models and datasets using local data instead of coarse global models. (© 2023 KAUST; Anastasia Serin)