Modeled 1km data from the Coastal and Regional Ocean Community model (CROCO) for investigation of submesoscale dynamics in the northern Gulf of Mexico from 2014-09-02 to 2016-08-27

This dataset contains two years of simulated observations of temperature, salinity, three-dimensional velocity, and mixed layer depth saved at five-day intervals from 2014-09-02 to 2016-08-27. The Coastal and Regional Ocean Community model (CROCO) is a new oceanic modeling system built upon ROMS_AGRIF and is designed for simulating high-resolution offshore and nearshore dynamics. The simulation is 1km horizontal resolution with 50 vertical layers. Mixing parameterizations are applied by rotated mixing tensors for the horizontal diffusion and the K-Profile Parameterization (KPP) vertical mixing scheme. Horizontal tracer advection is discretized with a split and rotated 3rd-order upstream-biased advection scheme. The model bathymetry is derived from the 2 minutes Gridded Global Relief Data (ETOPO2) topography interpolated to the model grid and modified to reduce horizontal pressure gradient errors, with maximum slope factor (rx0) of 0.25 and maximum hydrostatic inconsistency number (rx1) of 15. The model domain extends over the whole Gulf of Mexico and covers the region between about 98°-82°W, 24°-31°N. It has open boundaries to the east, north, and south that were nudged to the 6-hourly Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model - Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation (HYCOM-NCODA) Analysis system (GOMI0.04/expt_31.0, http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomGOM). Six-hourly wind stresses and heat fluxes, as well as daily precipitation from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast ERA-interim reanalysis, were used to force the model. Daily freshwater discharge is converted to the term of precipitation minus evaporation and is used for the modification of salinity. This dataset supports the publication: Bracco, A., Liu, G., Galaska, M. P., Quattrini, A. M., & Herrera, S. (2019). Integrating physical circulation models and genetic approaches to investigate population connectivity in deep-sea corals. Journal of Marine Systems, 198, 103189. doi:10.1016/j.jmarsys.2019.103189