Tag Archives: FVCOM

Chen Receives NERACOOS Award

wp_chen_neracoosSMAST Prof. Changsheng Chen and WHOI Scientist Emeritus Robert Beardsley were presented with the annual meeting award last week by NERACOOS, the Northeast Regional Association of Coastal and Ocean Observing Systems.

“From the founding of NERACOOS, Changsheng Chen and Robert Beardsley have led the development and evaluation of numerical models of water properties, currents and waves in the northwest Atlantic,” the award text reads. “These models add value to the NERACOOS data products, and extend the reach of the observing system to a wider spectrum of users by providing real time forecasts.”

The cited models are based on the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model originated by Chen, and developed and refined in collaboration with Beardsley for over a decade. The Marine Ecosystem Dynamics Modeling Group at SMAST, led by Chen, is involved in applying the FVCOM model to aquatic systems the world over.

NERACOOS was incorporated in November 2008 to “lead the development, implementation, operation, and evaluation of a sustained, regional coastal ocean observing system for the northeast United States and Canadian Maritime provinces… .” NERACOOS is one of eleven regional associations that constitute the United States Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®).

Photo, l to r: Changsheng Chen, Zdenka Willis (Director U.S. IOOS Program Office), Robert Beardsley.

One Year On, Lessons from Japan Quake

wp_Fukushima_fig_no_meshIn the months that followed the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, a legion of scientists undertook to investigate the phenomenon and to project its effects into the future. Highlights of that research are now available on line in the article “Lessons from the 2011 Japan Quake,” at the online version of Oceanus, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s popular science magazine. Among the featured scientists is SMAST Professor Changsheng Chen, who, along with longtime collaborator Dr. Robert Beardsley of WHOI, uses the computer model FVCOM to simulate the tsunami itself and then to predict the dispersion in the ocean of radioactive products from the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Young Faculty Build Research Base

wp_dan_macdonaldRecent additions to the SMAST faculty are successfully competing nationally for research funds and building strong research programs and funding records. Associate Professor Dan MacDonald, who joined the Department of Estuarine and Ocean Sciences in 2003, has been awarded a half million dollars by the National Science Foundation to conduct the second stage of his Merrimack River Mixing and Divergence Experiment, or MERMADE 2. An analysis of the physics of river plumes, the research builds upon his previous 3-year NSF grant, and includes an additional $500 thousand for his project collaborators at the University of Washington and Texas A&M University. SMAST Professor Lou Goodman is co-investigator for the project.

wp_geoff_coelesAssistant Professor Geoffrey Cowles, Department of Fisheries Oceanography, who joined the SMAST faculty just last fall, has received two major research grants since his appointment. Cowles is principal investigator on a $120 thousand project funded by the Office of Naval Research to model Skagit Bay in Washington State to investigate the effects of sediment transport on the morphology of estuarine systems. With MIT Sea Grant support, Cowles is also leading a $150 thousand, two-year study to assess tidal energy potential off the Massachusetts coast, as well as the potential hydrodynamic effects of harvesting that energy. Both projects involve the use of the FVCOM ocean model, originated by Prof. Changsheng Chen’s laboratory at SMAST, where Cowles served as research scientist before joining the SMAST faculty.