Forecast data are modelled by the parallel version of the hydrostatic BOlogna Limited Area Model (BOLAM) operational at the Italian National Agency for Environmental Protection and Technical Services in Rome (Italy). This parallel version, called QBOLAM, is employed in an operational setting as a part of the Sistema Idro-Meteo-Mare (Hydro-Meteo-Marine System; SIMM) forecasting chain, with a 11-km grid step over a domain covering the entire Mediterranean basin.

The QBOLAM11 model is forced with the QBOLAM33 forecast data, neglecting the first 12 hours (spin-up time), producing a 48-h forecast starting at 0000 UTC. The QBOLAM 33 runs are instead initialized using the 1200 UCT European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts analyses and forecasts.

The SIMM modelling chain includes also a 10-km WAve model (WAM) over the Mediterranean Sea, a shallow-water version of the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) for sea elevation over the Adriatic Sea and a finite element model for sea elevation in the Venice Lagoon (VL-FEM).

For DPHASE project, forecast data are provided over a subdomain (referred as DDOM) of the original domain (which covers the entire Mediterranean Basin). Forecast data will be also available on the COPS domain (referred as CDOM). Not all the meteorological fields selected for the experiment are provided, since some of these are not produced by the QBOLAM model.

Grid description:

Please note that the westermost longitude and the southermost latitude points refer to the sub-domain chosen for MAP DPHASE. The QBOLAM original domain covers the Mediterranean Basin.

CDOM: xfirst: -6.0 yfirst: 8.4 xsize: 54.0 ysize: 27.0 xinc: 0.1 yinc: 0.1 xnpole: -167.5 ynpole: 51.5

DDOM: xfirst: -9.5 yfirst: 4.4 xsize: 147.0 ysize: 67.0 xinc:0.1 yinc: 0.1 xnpole: -167.5 ynpole: 51.5