[MITgcm-support] [ANN] MOM 5.0.0 Released

[Tim Leslie]

Hi All,

Apologies for being somewhat off-topic, but I thought this might be of
interest to some members of this mailing list as members of the ocean
modelling community.

The MOM development team is pleased to announce the release of version
5.0.0 of the Modular Ocean Model.

This release marks the culmination of three years of development since
the last public release of MOM4p1 in December 2009. The MOM5.0.0
release includes many bug fixes and new features, including but not
limited to the following:

 - an embedded dynamical Lagrangian sub-model
 - extensive updates to diagnostic features
 - updates to physical parameterizations
 - updated documentation
 - C-grid option (experimental)

As well as improvements to the model, this release introduces a new
community model development portal, the Model Development Lab (MDL).

http://www.mom-ocean.org

The MDL has been developed by Breakaway Labs and will allow MOM to be
developed in an open and transparent manner. All users and developers
are encouraged to familiarize themselves with this new system.

The source code for MOM is now being managed with a public git
repository hosted on github.com. Download instructions can be found at

www.mom-ocean.org/web/download

The user mailing list for MOM is transitioning from the mailman based
list to a Google groups based list at

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mom-users

All users are encouraged to subscribe to this MOM group. It is a forum
where users can ask any questions about running the model and
developers can discuss new features and other ongoing developments.

We are excited to be providing an update to MOM, which allow users to
run state of the science ocean model experiments. As we move forward
we also hope to encourage community contributions and involvement in
the development process. The MDL infrastructure allows users to
contribute by

 - Adding new features to the model code
 - Improving the existing documentation
 - Reporting code bugs
 - Adding machines to the automatic testing system
 - Engaging in discussions about the future direction of model development

The near future development of MOM5 is focused on providing a robust
C-grid option, while maintaining the traditional B-grid features. We
are also restructuring/refactoring modules with an aim to update the
software to meet ongoing changes in computational hardware. When
ready, hopefully early-to-mid 2013, we will release MOM5.1 including
these changes.

Longer term MOM development aims to incorporate the arbitrary
Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) methods available in the GFDL layered model
GOLD.  This work is proceeding via the leadership of Alistair Adcroft
and Bob Hallberg at GFDL.

Along the way towards each of the MOM developments, the new Model
Development Lab framework will provide selected incremental updates
that allow users to more easily access both stable MOM branches as
well as developers' branches.

If you have any questions about this release, feel free to raise them
on the new mailing list.

We look forward to continued exciting science from the MOM community,
and to many more years of MOM developments and applications aimed at
meeting the needs of ocean science.

So as not to further hijack the MITgcm mailing list with more
off-topic discussion, please feel free to join us in the MOM google
group if you'd like to know more about MOM or this new release.

Sincerely,
 Tim Leslie for the MOM team