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e-Science

Global Coastal Ocean Modelling

What role do shallow seas play in the global climate?

This is a question that global climate models struggle to answer because these seas are too small and too shallow.

While shelf seas only occupy seven percent of the ocean by area, they require 70 times the computer power than the deep ocean because of the complex small-scale processes that occur there, such as currents, tides and mixing. Because of this, we need oceanographers and computer scientists working together to find new ways of looking at shelf seas to increase knowledge of the whole Earth system.

The Global Coastal Ocean Modelling project brings together oceanographers, ecosystem modellers and computer scientists from four leading UK research institutions to address this challenge.

• Why are shelf seas so important for the Earth system?
• Building connecting models of all the continental shelves