The St Magnus Bay Model

The St. Magnus Bay (SMB) model is an implementation of the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) and has a domain focused on St. Magnus Bay on the west coast of Shetland. The model grid is unstructured with the highest horizontal resolution as small as 15 – 20 m between nodes in Row Sound between the Shetland mainland and the island of Muckle Roe. More typically the node spacing is 50 – 100 m in the Sounds and Voes of this region. The outer open boundary has a node spacing of around 1.2 km.  The water column is resolved by 10 terrain following sigma layers, each representing 10% of the water column.

The main output from the model to date is a one year Climatology representing typical present day conditions (1990-2014). For this climatology, the model was forced by the wider Scottish Shelf Model (SSM) climatology at the open boundary. Effectively, the SMB model is nested within the wider SSM. Climatological atmospheric forcing and freshwater input were also applied to the model. The wider SSM has a 1993 tidal component included, which was then applied to the SMB climatology. The latest version of the climatology is SMB 1.02.

This information page is part of the theme: 
The Scottish Shelf Model
The model domain and node spacing of the St Magnus Bay model

Model Runs and Versions

The model versions/runs listed each have a different computational grid and/or use different forcing data. This is reflected in the version numbering convention where the first number indicates the grid version and the second indicates the model run and/or the forcing data used. Rows where the text is gray indicate that the model version has been surpassed with a later version, usually listed directly below. For example, SMB 1.01 was replaced by SMB 1.02.

Version Number Time Period Description Boundary Forcing Atmospheric Forcing Fresh Water Forcing FVCOM Version DOI
SMB 1.01 1 year climatology representing 1960 - 2004 Original SMB grid with climatological forcing The wider SSM version 1.01 Climatology derived from ECMWF ERA-40 and ERA-Interim (1960-2004) Grid2Grid climatology (1962-2011) 3.1.6  
SMB 1.02 1 year climatology representing 1990 - 2014 Original SMB grid with updated climatological forcing The wider SSM version 2.01 Climatology derived from ECMWF ERA-Interim (1990-2014) Grid2Grid climatology (1962-2011)   10.7489/12044-1

If you are interested in any of these models, or the model outputs, please contact the Marine Scotland Science Oceanography group (mss.oceanography@gov.scot). Some reduced precision model outputs of selected variables are available for download by following the links in the data sources table below and/or following the DOI links.

Friday, March 4, 2022 - 12:03

Links and Resources

Type Title External link
Marine Scotland Data Portal The Scottish Shelf Model. Part 3: St Magnus Bay Sub-Domain data.marine.gov.scot