A High Resolution Ocean Model with Variable Forcing of Wind, Heat, and Freshwater: Initial Evaluation

• Main Author: Tokmakian, Robin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1998
• Subjects: Pacific; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10945/43403

A new model (POCM_4C) run of the high resolution (1/4° Semtner/Chervin Parallel Ocean Climate Model) has been completed which incorporates the use of daily varying surface fluxes of momentum, heat, and freshwater over a period of 18 years from 1979 though 1996 (soon to be through 1998). The basic formulation of the model is described in Semtner and Chervin, 1992. The model run differs from the previous run (POCM 4B Stammer et al., 1996) by the modification of the tracer equations for temperature and salinity to incorporate realistic time varying fluxes. The previous model run included only time varying winds with a monthly heat and freshwater climatology applied. The fluxes used to force the current simulation are computed from the ECMWF reanalysis data set for the period of 1979 to 1993; after which the operational fields from ECMWF are used for the forcing (1994–present). Part of the goal of these model runs is to attempt to understand the intrinsic variability in the model versus that which is forced from the variable surface conditions on time scales longer than annual. It is a further goal of this research to examine which surface signals can be used to monitor subsurface changes related to the various climate indices (e.g. North Atlantic Oscillation or North Pacific Indices).