Lagrangian Data in a High Resolution Numerical Simulation of the North Atlantic. I: Comparison with In-Situ Drifter Data

• Main Authors: Zulema D. Garraffo, Arthur J. Mariano, Annalisa Griffa, Carmela Veneziani, Eric P. Chassignet, La Spezia It
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.35.5995

A model/data comparison was performed between simulated drifters from a high resolution numerical simulation of the North Atlantic and a data set from in-situ surface drifters. The comparison makes use of pseudo-Eulerian statistics such as mean velocity and eddy kinetic energy, and Lagrangian statistics such as integral time scales. The space and time distribution of the two data sets differ in the sense that the in-situ drifters were released inhomogeneously in space and time while the simulated drifters were homogeneously seeded at the same time over a regular 1 o grid. Despite this difference, the total data distributions computed over the complete data sets show some similarities that are mostly related to the large scale pattern of Ekman divergence/convergence. Comparisons of eddy kinetic energy and root mean square velocity indicate that the numerical model underestimates the eddy kinetic energy in the Gulf Stream extension and in the ocean interior. In addition, the model Lag.