The numerical aspects of ROMS have been described in detail by Shchepetkin and McWilliams (2005).
ROMS has been used to model the circulation in a variety of different regions of the world ocean, ranging from local to basin scale
Nowadays, the model has already a large user community.
The domain used for the model, in its configuration for the Bay of Biscay, extended in latitude from 41°00′ to 48°00′N and in longitude from 13°30′ to 0°30′W, with a mean horizontal resolution of 6.6 km.
Vertically, the water column was divided into 20 sigma coordinate levels; these were concentrated at the surface, where most of the variability occurs and in order to retain a good resolution of sea surface processes.
The topography of the model was obtained by interpolation, following optimisation analysis, of the ETOPO2 (2 minute
digital Elevation Topographic model), GEBCO (General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans) and IBCM (International Bathymetric Chart of the Mediterranean).
This approach was adopted in order to get a realistic bathymetry, which was smoothed to ensure stable and accurate simulations