OPABAT Tool

OPABAT is a set of Fortran and IDL procedures allowing to build a bathymetry filed on the grid of OPA, the oceanic dynamic component of the NEMO system. The bathymetry's construction is an essential step when setting up an new configuration of the sydtem : the choice of the trsehholds, of the passage's width and dorsal's height, to sum up the choice of the realism of the bathymetry at the given resolution conditions at the first order the oceanic flows computed by the model. This aspect of the problem imposes a manual intervention during the construction, in order to control the precision.

However, this manual intervention is increasingly light with the raise in resolution, the limit of resolution equalizing the precision of the data. With OPA model, bathymetry is calculated in vertical levels at the point of mass T of the C-Arakawa grid, with for value, zero, for the continents, of 1 with jpk for the oceanic bottom.

The development of the field of bathymetry is carried out in two times :

• By the automatic construction of an outline through FORTRAN programs by using a bathymetric data file high resolution.
  
• In one second step by the manual correction under IDL of the field.
  

You can download the tools here:

And find some documentation here (in French):

An example of IDL procedures can be found at the bottom of the page.