Galiana et al. (2025) AquaINFRA Marine Modeling System

Identification

• Journal: Open MIND
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-27
• Authors: Savitri Galiana, Merret Buurman, Markus Konkol, Joaquim Ballabrera‐Poy
• DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17736640

Research Groups

• Institut de Ciències del Mar
• Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
• Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB)
• 52°North Spatial Information Research

Short Summary

This paper introduces the AquaINFRA Marine Modeling System, an integrated workflow built around the MIT General Circulation Model (MITgcm) for marine simulations. It provides a complete chain of tools for data preprocessing, model execution, and post-processing, specifically tailored for the northwestern Mediterranean Sea and designed for interoperability within the Galaxy platform.

Objective

• To develop and present an integrated, reproducible, and interoperable marine modeling system based on MITgcm, providing a complete workflow from data preprocessing to post-processing and visualization, specifically for the northwestern Mediterranean Sea.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Northwestern Mediterranean Sea.
• Temporal Scale: Not explicitly stated for a specific simulation, but the system is designed to support various temporal scales depending on the user's simulation requirements.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: MIT General Circulation Model (MITgcm)
• Data sources:
  • Copernicus Marine Service Mediterranean Sea products (CMEMS) for oceanographic initial and boundary conditions.
  • ERA5 reanalysis via Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS) for atmospheric forcing.
  • Additional input datasets: bathymetry, land–sea masks, river discharge climatologies.

Main Results

• Development of the AquaINFRA Marine Modeling System, an integrated workflow for marine simulations.
• The system comprises modules for automated data preprocessing, MITgcm execution, and post-processing/visualization, implemented in Bash, Python, and Fortran.
• It is tailored for the northwestern Mediterranean Sea, including pre-bundled bathymetry, coastline masks, and river forcings.
• Designed for seamless integration into the Galaxy platform via the AquaINFRA interoperability architecture, exposing components as OGC API processes (pyGeoAPI).
• All components are deployed as Dockerized services to ensure reproducibility, interoperability, and orchestration in cloud-based and distributed Galaxy environments.

Contributions

• Provides a fully integrated and automated marine modeling workflow, streamlining the use of MITgcm from data preparation to visualization.
• Enhances reproducibility and interoperability of marine simulations through Dockerization and OGC API integration within the Galaxy platform.
• Offers a pre-configured and parameterized MITgcm setup specifically for the northwestern Mediterranean Sea, reducing setup time for users.
• Facilitates access to and utilization of complex marine modeling capabilities for a broader scientific community through a user-friendly, cloud-ready environment.

Funding

• European Commission AquaINFRA - Infrastructure for Marine and Inland Water Research (Project ID: 101094434)

Citation

@article{Galiana2025AquaINFRA,
  author = {Galiana, Savitri and Buurman, Merret and Konkol, Markus and Ballabrera‐Poy, Joaquim},
  title = {AquaINFRA Marine Modeling System},
  journal = {Open MIND},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.17736640},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17736640}
}