Physical dynamics of ocean flows at fine spatial scales are challenging for regional and global scale ocean models due to high computational effort associated with smaller grid cell sizes. We compared two ocean models: a regional model (ROMS; Regional Ocean Modeling System) and global model (MPAS-O; Model for Prediction Across Scales – Ocean) across a range of resolutions (10 km to 100 m) in an idealized domain, and found that their similarities may hold promise for future coupling between them.