Date: 11 Feb 2026
Attendees: @sofarrell, @AndyHoggANU, @aekiss, @kieranricardo, @anton, @dougiesquire, @Paul.Gregory
Chair: @cbull
Minutes: @minghangli
1. Data comparison and early evaluations
- @AndyHoggANU aims to compare OM3, CM3, OM2 at 8km and 25km using available data in the datastore.
- @kieranricardo suggested salinity and wind stress look improved after a fix (reference for this fix??). Adding iceberg flux increased sea ice, which is helpful in some regions but may worsen already-high northern hemisphere total sea ice and it is too high. Ice now appears around Greenland.
- Some concerns are deferred until the B-grid landmask is available. Until then, avoid overinterpreting artefacts.
2. B grid landmask + topography workflow
- @aekiss reported polar B-grid landmask/topography workflow is basically done but not fully tested.
- Updated topo and mask files have been generated and staged in pre-release but not pushed to configs yet because further checks are still pending, such as restoring, marginal seas and other tweaks.
- Changes are focused on coastal/marginal sea regions where any sea ice has occurred in long runs.
- We agreed to finish validation test first then push to the iaf configs and likely run a new iaf cycle incorporating fixes. Start a fresh CM3 run once the new landmask is minimally tested.
3. MOM6 dev meeting updates
- @dougiesquire made notes in #ocean-seaice > MOM6 dev calls @
and the update highlighted MOM6 move towards Apache 2.0 relicensing - all contributors have approved. This mainly makes code share into/out of MOM6 easier across models. - @dougiesquire showed what we do with Zenodo releases. Bob and Alistair seemed to like the approach.
- @angus-g is expected to submit an adaptive grid PR at some stage (not urgent, paper is still needed)
4. 100km grid generation
- @ezhilsabareesh8 raised questions on the ocean_model_grid_generator with the equitorial refinement. It produced sharp transitions and a completely different profile even though it fixed a north pole area spike and some bifold issues.
- On the other hand, make_hgrid can reproduce what access-om2 used but introduces a tiny bifold asymmetry due to a rotate-pole area calculation (difference is very small).
- We agreed the symmetry artefact is not a concern and it’s better to use the tool that produces the right functional form and overall behaviour.
- One tweak is requested to move the start of the constant Y southern band from 78S to 75S to add a bit more resolution at those latitudes.
5. Render evalution figures
- @cbull provide a quick figure first view for community members who want to contribute scientifically without running code.
- @anton preferred hosting in the same repo as the recipes/notebooks and publish versions via tags so each tag builds a version of the site. This avoids PR overhead.
- Some concerns:
- Maintenance burden is the biggest risk - notebooks dont run out of the box and checking results is time-consuming.
- Some clarity needed on if figures are snapshots or averages and what time windows were used.
- Fully rendering notebooks is simpler but can be long. Summary pages are more usable but introduce extra curation steps.
- It’s better to write down exact steps so effort can be compared directly.
- Decide how to embed or standardise metadata such as averaging period or snapshot timing without relying on people membering to manually edit captions.
6. TWG reporting
- @aekiss proposed replacing purely minute-based reporting with a short curated highlights update aimed at what the community actually cares about.
- Keep minute-taking process the same but reporting can be owned by one person but open to contributions.
- @aekiss will draft/drive the curated reporting approach and coordinate with the roster/minute-taker.
7. Next OM3 release status
- There was concern that OM3 release work is already partially in progress but risks becoming stale due to upstream churn and @cbull has prioritised other work including Ocean Sciences travel with an approximate return around mid March.
- The long gaps make the process harder because contexct is forgotten and upstream changes accumulate and we preferred smaller and more regular progress.
- @anton suggested near-term risk reduction step is restart comparison or coupling sanity checks to catch obvious breakages like fields becoming zero. @cbull considers handing off parts of the release effort if not progressed before travel.