umwm

University of Miami Wave Model (UMWM)

A tiny, fast, parallel spectral ocean wave model.

This is the reference implementation of UMWM, described by Donelan et al. (2012), with later improvements and bug fixes. UMWM solves the wave energy balance equation on a curvilinear grid. It has been used to simulate:

• Global swell and windsea
• Waves in coastal and hurricane conditions
• Wave-induced material transport (Stokes drift)
• Ancient Martian seas and methane lakes on Titan
• Waves in laboratory settings such as wave tanks

UMWM was initially designed with a primary goal of accurate and conservative momentum coupling with atmosphere and ocean circulation models. That design goal remains a priority. Further, UMWM takes a highly simplified approach to nonlinear downshifting of wave energy; this allows it to run signinficantly faster than other spectral wave models.

Getting started

Get the code

git clone https://github.com/umwm/umwm

System dependencies

• make
• A recent Fortran compiler (known to work with GNU, Intel, Cray, and IBM)
• NetCDF for I/O
• MPI for parallel processing (optional)

Building UMWM

Type make to build the serial model and auxiliary tools:

make

The default serial compiler is gfortran. Select another compiler by setting FC:

make FC=ifx
make FC=flang

The default FCFLAGS are aggressive GNU-style optimization flags: -Ofast -march=native -ffast-math -funroll-loops -Wall. Override FCFLAGS when using a compiler that needs different optimization options:

make FC=ifx FCFLAGS="-O3 -xHost -ipo -fp-model fast=2"

Build with MPI by setting MPI=yes. This defines -DMPI and defaults to the mpif90 wrapper unless FC is set explicitly:

make MPI=yes
make MPI=yes FC=mpiifx

NetCDF Fortran flags are discovered with nf-config by default. If you have multiple NetCDF installs, point to the matching nf-config for your compiler:

make NF_CONFIG=/path/to/nf-config

As a fallback, set NETCDF to an install prefix with include and lib subdirectories, or provide the flags manually:

make NETCDF=/path/to/netcdf
make NETCDF_FFLAGS="-I/path/include" NETCDF_FLIBS="-L/path/lib -lnetcdff -lnetcdf"

Use make print-config to see the resolved compiler and NetCDF settings. Executable umwm will be built in the top-level directory and auxiliary tool executables will be built in tools/. PDF documentation can be built separately with make docs.

Running tests

Run the test suite from the top-level directory:

make test

Running UMWM

Running in serial mode:

./umwm

Running in parallel, for example on 16 cores:

mpiexec -n 16 ./umwm

You can read the full technical reference doc here.

Papers

Papers about or using UMWM:

• Detelich, C. E., U. G. Schneck, A. G. Hayes, M. Curcic, R. V. Palermo, A. D. Ashton, J. T. Perron, J. M. Lora, and J. Steckloff, 2026: Modeling the seasonality of wind-driven hydrocarbon waves in Titan’s polar lakes, J. Geophys. Res. Planets, 131(5), e2026JE009693, doi:10.1029/2026JE009693. Link

• Schneck, U. G., C. E. Detelich, M. Curcic, A. D. Ashton, A. G. Hayes, and J. T. Perron, 2026: Modeling wind-driven waves on other planets: Applications to Mars, Titan, and exoplanets, J. Geophys. Res. Planets, 131(4), e2025JE009490, doi:10.1029/2025JE009490. Link

• Barr, B. W. and S. S. Chen, 2025: Impacts of seastate-dependent sea spray heat fluxes on tropical cyclone structure and intensity in fully coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean model simulations, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 17(7), e2024MS004550, doi:10.1029/2024MS004550. Link

• Barr, B. W., S. S. Chen, and C. W. Fairall, 2023: Sea-state-dependent sea spray and air-sea heat fluxes in tropical cyclones: A new parameterization for fully coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean models, J. Atmos. Sci., 80(4), 933-960, doi:10.1175/JAS-D-22-0126.1. Link

• Haza A. C., N. Paldor, T. M. Özgökmen, M. Curcic, S. S. Chen, and G. Jacobs, 2019: Wind-based estimations of ocean surface currents from massive clusters of drifters in the Gulf of Mexico, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 124, doi:10.1029/2018JC014813. PDF.

• Li, G., M. Curcic, M. Iskandarani, S. S. Chen, and O. M. Knio, 2019: Uncertainty propagation in coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean system: A study of Hurricane Earl (2010), Mon. Wea. Rev., 147, 221-245, doi:10.1175/MWR-D-17-0371.1. PDF

• Haza, A., E. D’Asaro, H. Cheng, S. S. Chen, M. Curcic, C. Guigand, H. S. Huntley, G. Jacobs, G. Novelli, T. M. Özgökmen, A. C. Poje, E. Ryan, and A. Scherbina, 2018: Drogue-loss detection for surface drifters during the Lagrangian Submesoscale Experiment (LASER), J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 35(4), 705-725, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-17-0143.1. PDF

• Dietrich, J. C., A. Muhammad, M. Curcic, A. Fathi, C. N. Dawson, S. S. Chen, and R. A. Luettich Jr., 2018: Sensitivity of storm surge predictions to atmospheric forcing during Hurricane Isaac, J. Waterway, Port, Coastal, Ocean Eng., 144(1): 04017035. PDF

• Kim, E., M. Lance, M. Curcic, S. S. Chen, C. Phillips, and P. Veers, 2016: On the use of coupled wind, wave, and current fields in the simulation of loads on bottom-supported offshore wind turbines during hurricanes, Technical Report NREL/TP–5000-65283, National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO, United States, doi:10.2172/1266702. Link

• Judt, F., S. S. Chen, and M. Curcic, 2016: Atmospheric forcing of the upper ocean transport in the Gulf of Mexico: From seasonal to diurnal scales, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 121, 4416-4433, doi:10.1002/2015JC011555. PDF

• Curcic, M., S. S. Chen, and T. M. Ozgökmen, 2016: Hurricane-induced ocean waves and Stokes drift and their impacts on surface transport and dispersion in the Gulf of Mexico, Geophys. Res. Lett., 43, 2773–2781, doi:10.1002/2015GL067619. PDF

• Zhu, P., Y. Wang, S. S. Chen, M. Curcic, and C. Gao, 2016: Impact of storm-induced cooling of sea surface temperature on large turbulent eddies and vertical turbulent transport in the atmospheric boundary layer of Hurricane Isaac, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 121, 861–876, doi:10.1002/2015JC011320. PDF

• Chen, S. S. and M. Curcic, 2016: Ocean surface waves in Hurricane Ike (2008) and Superstorm Sandy (2012): Coupled modeling and observations, Oce. Mod., 103, 161-176. doi:10.1016/j.ocemod.2015.08.005. PDF

• Curcic, M., 2015: Explicit air-sea momentum exchange in coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean modeling of tropical cyclones, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Miami. Link

• Banfield, D., M. A. Donelan, and L. Cavaleri, 2015: Winds, waves and shorelines from ancient martian seas, Icarus, 250, 368-383, doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2014.12.001. Link

• Reichl, B. G., T. Hara, and I. Ginis, 2014: Sea state dependence of the wind stress over the ocean under hurricane winds, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 119, 30-51, doi:10.1002/2013JC009289. Link

• Curcic M., E. Kim, L. Manuel, S. S. Chen, M. A. Donelan, J. Michalakes, 2013: Coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean modeling to characterize hurricane load cases for offshore wind turbines, 51st AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 2013, Grapevine TX, doi:10.2514/6.2013-198. PDF

• Donelan, M. A., M. Curcic, S. S. Chen, and A. K. Magnusson, 2012: Modeling waves and wind stress, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 117, C00J23, doi:10.1029/2011JC007787. PDF

Thanks

UMWM development is currently supported by the NSF Award 2543464.

Previously, UMWM was supported by the NSF Award 1745384, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, and the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.

Many thanks as well to the open source contributors:

• Tim Campbell (Naval Research Laboratory)
• Milan Curcic (University of Miami)
• Anton Darmenov (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
• Mark Donelan (University of Miami)
• Michael Hirsch (Scivision Inc.)
• Edoardo Mazza (University of Washington)
• Aishwarya Raman (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
• Dalton Kei Sasaki (University of Sao Paolo)
• Martin Schmidt (Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research)
• Ashwanth Srinivasan (Tendral LLC)

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