Nodal Bottom Depth / Vertical Integration

[alxthor]

I had a look at the core2 mesh files in order to perform vertical integration/averaging of output and also looking at the mesh bathymetry.
What is the difference between the values listed in aux3d.out (according to the documentation H_v is the depth at each vertex) and the values in the fesom.mesh.diag.nc (zbar_n_bottom is described as nodal bottom depth)?
The values in the fesom.mesh.diag.nc seem to always match a FESOM level, but it is not always the closest level to the one in aux3d.out.
For integration/averaging as I understand, it is fine using the levels as defined in the top part of aux3d.out since the actual zstar layer thicknesses (e.g. in the hnode.nc restart file) differ only slightly from the ones in aux3d.out.

[koldunovn]

The levels in aux3d.out are given as an input to the model, that then generates depth according to the set of model levels provided. Long story short one always have to use zbar_n_bottom.

Yes, you can in most cases just ignore small differences in layer thickness.