Joint Numerical Sea Modelling Group (JONSMOD)

How to use this Wiki website?

Previously the JONSMOD website was hosted by the University of Plymouth. In cooperation with the JONSMOD organizing committee it was decided to transfer this website to Deltares, The Netherlands. We have chosen a new format, namely a Wiki website.

The main buttons are on top of this website. By clicking on "Home", "Previous events 1998-2008", "JONSMOD 2010", "JONSMOD 2012" or "Contact", additional information can be found. This is often in the form of powerpoint presentations or photos. For the 2010 event there is a separate clickable button because a lot of presentations and photos are available. For the next "JONSMOD 2012 Conference " more information will become available in 2011.

Introduction to the Joint Numerical Sea Modelling Group (JONSMOD)

JONSMOD was originally formed out of a 1970s research programme. The acronym was Joint North Sea Modelling Group. In 1981, Phil Dyke became chairman and the organisation had three principal aims:

1. To run a workshop on the latest modelling techniques for shallow seas every two years (biennially).
2. To keep costs to a minimum and therefore to encourage young researchers to present their work in a friendly, unthreatening atmosphere, but to an informed audience.
3. To publish a selection of the papers in an internationally refereed journal. Hence giving young researchers a foot on the ladder into a research career.

In order to be more general and not just referencing the North Sea, the acronym was changed to mean Joint Numerical Sea Modelling Group in the late 1980s. We have successfully attained all three stated aims.

The models presented at the workshops in the main concern shallow sea dynamics, commonly but not exclusively of the physical oceanography of a sea area utilising a constant Coriolis parameter. Wind and tidal forcing predominate in the models.

The venue does dictate the flavour of a particular conference. For example, the conferences that have been held at Delft Hydraulics have contained more than the usual number of papers on smaller scale modelling – virtually coastal engineering; the conference at the Danish Hydraulics Institute contained extra work on ecosystems modelling; while those in Norway contained more models than usual of larger scale ocean flows (β plane dynamics for example).

In recent decade, presentations have taken advantage of power point, video clips and real time computer runs. The 2004 venue was Wärnemunde in Germany, the Baltic Sea Research Institute. The 2006 conference was at the University of Plymouth. In 2008 (23-25 June 2008) JONSMOD was hosted at the Institute for Marine Research and sister institutes in Bergen, Norway. In 2010 (10-12 May 2010) JONSMOD was organized by Deltares (previously Delft Hydraulics) at Delft in The Netherlands. In 2010 JONSMOD will be hosted by IFREMER in Brest, France.

A paper about the first 25 years of JONSMOD (1981-2006) was published in Ocean Dynamics in 2007, see History_JONSMOD.pdf.

Presentations from previous JONSMOD conferences and photos from these events are availabe via the buttons at the top of this Wiki website. If you have your own photos you would like to contribute, please send them to (erik.degoede@deltares.nl). Please feel free to download and print any of these photos.

Professor Phil Dyke,

Chairman of Jonsmod