MOM is an acronym for Modular Ocean Model. The model was designed and developed by researchers at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL/NOAA Department of Commerce) as a numerical ocean modelling tool for use in studying ocean circulation over a wide range of space and time scales. Institutionally, MOM is supported by GFDL. The focus of development work is to maximize scientific productivity within the computational environment at GFDL. However, the model is sufficiently general to be of use elsewhere. Therefore, MOM is being made freely available to the general oceanographic and climate research community as public domain software. Unless otherwise noted, MOM refers to MOM 3 version 0 (MOM 3.0) which represents the state of the art in ocean modelling at GFDL near the end of 1999.
This manual is included as part of MOM. Its purpose is to provide documentation as well as guidance to aid in the educated use of MOM by exposing details of the salient theoretical and numerical ideas upon which MOM is based. Without it, details inappropriate for published papers would certainly be lost or at best remain obscure to all but a very few. Although the bulk of this document has been written by two main authors, many researchers from around the world have contributed as well and their work is acknowleged in their respective sections. If questions arise, authors may be contacted for help. However, do not expect them to solve your coding problems.