Unstructured mesh generation for unified coastal modelling in Earth system models

Coupled coastal models are often constrained and simplified by details of their numerical approach, with different computational grids, mathematical formulations and coupling strategies used to discretise the individual physics of the system. In this poster, we present an alternative unified approach to integrated coastal modelling, in which all ocean, land and river components are represented on a common, multi-scale unstructured mesh that is aligned and adapted to resolve the coupled physics. Here we present details of the unstructured mesh generation and geospatial data processing workflows focusing on methods to represent coastal ocean dynamics, river flows, and watershed processes across a range of spatial scales. This initiative is an extension of the US Department of Energy's E3SM framework, designed to enhance the representation of coastal dynamics in global-scale ESMs. Initial work on a 'unified' representation of coastal environments in the US mid-Atlantic region is reported, as part of the Integrated Coastal Modelling (ICoM) project. LA-UR-21-27666