? Who's Who ?

GOTM is a model with a true European dimension and added value. The core team involves 6 modellers "Hans, Georg, Karsten, Manuel, PP, Lars", Encho" of different nationalities and working in 4 different countries (Germany, Italy, UK, Switzerland). This page describes (i) the core team which is in charge of the development, support and promotion of GOTM (on a permanent basis) and (ii) the GOTM contributors who bring new developments in the code.

GOTM core team

Dr. Hans BURCHARD
- GOTM initiator - model physics & numerics -
Hans BURCHARD

Address: Institut für Meereskunde der Universität Hamburg Troplowitzstr. 7, D-22529 Hamburg, GERMANY.

Email: hans@gotm.net

Web:    http://www.ifm.uni-hamburg.de/~burchard

Phone: + 49 (0)40 42838 - 2995

Fax:    + 49 (0)40 5605926


Hans initiated GOTM and is in charge of the physics and numerics of the model. Afer a short detour as teacher for sports and mathematics at a Gymnasium (high school), Hans started a Master degree in Applied Mathematics at the University of Hamburg in 1992 followed by a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography (turbulence modeling and three-dimensional models for coastal areas) at the Institute for Oceanography of the University of Hamburg. In 1996 he worked on vertical coordinate transformations at the International Centre for Computational Hydrodynamics (ICCH) at the DHI (Danish Hydraulic Institute) in Horsholm, Denmark. From 1997-1998 Hans worked on turbulence modeling at the Space Applications Institute of the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy. Since 1999, Hans is back at his home institute in Hamburg carrying out further work on turbulence modeling. 


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Dr. Karsten BOLDING
- GOTM initiator - model code, support and development -
Karsten BOLDING

Address: Joint Research Centre, Space Applications Institute, Marine Environment Unit, I-21020 Ispra (VA), ITALY.

Email: karsten@gotm.net

Web:    http://me-www.jrc.it/

Phone:    + 39 0332 22 50 90

Fax:    + 39 0332 76 96 48


Karsten (alias kbk) is the initiatior of GOTM and is in charge of the maintenance and development of the code. After a M.Sc. in Civil engineering (1988, DTU, Denmark), and a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography (1988-1991), Karsten worked at the DMI (Danish Meteorological Institute) on storm-surge prediction and data assimilation. In Nov 1997, Karsten joined the DHI (Danish Hydraulic Institute to work on Consultancy and parallelisation. Since, 1998, he is working at the JRC Marine Unit on turbulence modelling and measurements. He is the specialist of the GOTM informatic code.


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Dr. Manuel RUIZ-VILLARREAL
- Expert in Length scale & stability functions formulations -
Manuel RUIZ-VILLARREAL

Address: Institut für Meereskunde der Universität Hamburg Troplowitzstr. 7, D-22529 Hamburg, GERMANY.

Email: manuel@gotm.net

Web:    http://www.ifm.uni-hamburg.de/~ruiz

Phone: + 49 (0)40 42838 - 2995

Fax:    + 49 (0)40 5605926



Manuel joined the GOTM team in Aug 98 during a training period at the Marine Unit JRC, shortly after at the beginning of GOTM development ;-). He was working at different levels in GOTM (coding, test cases, IW parameterizations, algebraic length scales...). He got a Ph.D.in marine modelling of the Galician Rias, at the Group of Nonlinear Physics of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). He then worked in coupling GOTM with MOHID (a 3D coastal and estuarine model) as a post-doc at the MARETEC group at the Technical University of Lisboa (Portugal). He is currently a Marie Curie fellow at the Institute of Oceanography of the University of Hamburg (Germany), with a project on 3D modelling of the Elbe estuary with special interest on the mechanisms that generate estuarine turbidity maxima.


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Dr. Pierre-Philippe MATHIEU
- GOTM Webmaster & developer -
Pierre-Philippe MATHIEU

Address: Center for Global Atmospheric Modelling,Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, PO Box 243 Earley Gate Reading RG6 6BB, UK.

Email: pp@gotm.net

Web:    http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~mathieu/

Phone: + 44 (0)118 987.5123
(Ext 7901)

Fax:    + 44 (0)118 118-931.8905


Pierre-Philippe (alias PP or Peps) joined the GOTM team in Apr 1999 by developing the present web. After a degree in Mechanical engineering (1989-1994) at the University of Liege (Belgium), a M.Sc. in marine environment modelling (1994-1996) and a Ph.D. thesis in global ocean/climate modelling (1994-1998) at the Institute of Astronomy & Geophysics (Belgium), PP joined the GOTM team to work on 1D marine ecosystem modelling. PP started his PostDoc research on coastal ocean ecological model at the Center for Estuarine & Coastal Ecology (NIOO, Netherlands) and then at the Joint Research Center (Marine Environment Unit, European Commission, Italy). He is currently working in the Center for Global Atmospheric Modelling within the COAPEC project, trying to better understand the seasonal/decadal variability of the European climate by use of the coupled atmosphere-ocean Hadley center model.


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Dr. Georg UMGIESSER
- Embedment of GOTM in 3D models -
Georg UMGIESSER

Address: Istituto Studio Dinamica Grandi Masse, National Research Council, Venice, ITALY.

Email: georg@gotm.net

Web:    http://www.isdgm.ve.cnr.it/~georg/

Phone: + 39 041 52 16 875

Fax:    + 39 041 26 02 340


Georg joined the GOTM team in Feb 2000 by introducing GOTM in a 3D ocean model. In 1986, Georg took a Master degree in Physical Oceanography and in 1998 in Physics at the University of Hamburg. Since 1983 Georg is working for the ISDGM, an institute of the Italian National Research Council CNR in Venice. He is working on mathematical modeling of the Venice Lagoon and the North Adriatic Sea and finite element model development.


Dr. Lars UMLAUF
- Generic GOTM code -
Lars UMLAUF

Address: Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne , Laboratoire des Recherches Hydrauliques, Departement de Genie Civil EPFL, CH-1015 Lausanne, SWITZERLAND.

Email: lars@gotm.net

Web:    http://lrhwww.epfl.ch

Phone: +41   (0)21 693 24 00

Fax:    +41 (0)21 693 67 67


Lars became member of the GOTM team in 2001 by developing and testing (together with Hans) the "Generic Turbulence Model", now implemented in GOTM. From 1991-1998 he studied Mechanics at the University of Darmstadt and at the UC Berkeley . In 2001 he received a Ph.D. in Mechanics with a work on turbulence modelling and physical-biological interactions in lakes. Currently, he is working as a Post-Doc at the EPFL in different fields of lake research, among them turbulence modelling, dynamics of internal waves at sloping boundaries, three-dimensional modelling of lakes, and turbulence measurements.


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Dr. Encho DEMIROV
- Embedment of GOTM in MOM - OPA models -
Encho DEMIROV

Address: ISAO-CNR, Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e dell'Oceano, Via Gobetti 101, I-40129 Bologna, ITALY.

Email: encho@gotm.net

Web:    http://www.isao.bo.cnr.it

Phone: + 39  051-63.98.006

Fax:+39   051-63.98.132


Encho became a member of GOTM group in 2002 by implementing GOTM in the Modular Ocean Model and applying it in simulation of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1991, Encho took a degree in physical oceanography in the Russian State Hydrometeorological University (St. Petersburg). Between 1984 and 1996 Encho was involved in modelling and field studies of the Black Sea. He participated in the first projects HydroBlack, ComsBlack and TuBlack involving institutes from the whole Black Sea region and Woods Hole Ocoeanographic Institution. From 1997 to 1998 Encho worked on Atlantic ocean modelling in the Space Application Institute, of the Joint Research Center in Italy. Between 1998 and 2000, he participated in the Mediterranean Forecasting System Pilot Project. Presently he is working on modeling and operational forecasting of the basin scale circulation of the Mediterranean Sea in the group for Dynamical Climatology of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology of Italy.


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? Who's Who in
GOTM contibutors?

This must be the right place to acknowledge some people without whom GOTM would never have reached the state it has today. They have not contributed directly to the development of GOTM but instead they have allowed us to use their observations of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rates and other variables observed in several European waters to directly compare model results to observations of a turbulent quantity. We have especially had coorporation with two groups. One group is built around the sensor development work carried out at the

Institut fuer Ostseeforschung in Warnemuende (http://www.io-warnemuende.de), Germany. Key persons are Hartmut Prandke (prandke@t-online.de) and Adolf Stips (adolf.stips@jrc.it). Hartmut Prandke (ISW Wassermesstechnik Dr. Hartmut Prandke, http://www.isw-wasser.com) is developing, producing and selling a 'shear probe sensor' in addition to providing various services in relation to collecting and processing the observations. Adolf Stips now works at the Joint Research Centre ( http://www.jrc.it), Italy and has participated in a number of cruises from which we have received data.

The other group is from the University of Bangor (http://www.sos.bangor.ac.uk), Wales. Here we especially have worked with John Simpson (j.h.simpson@bangor.ac.uk), Tom Rippeth (oss009@sos.bangor.ac.uk) and Neil Fisher (oss40c@bangor.ac.uk). The support and encouragement we have received from them have been in-valuable and have provided us with confidence in that our decision of releasing GOTM under GPL was correct. This group has kindly provided observations for the Liverpool Bay and in the frame of the PROVESS project (MAS3-CT97-0025, http://www.pol.ac.uk/provess/) of the European Communities.

We would here like to take the opportunity to thank not only the persons mentioned by name - but also all other persons involved in the cruises and campaigns from which we have received observations. Back to Top