Development and Evaluation of a Global Version of the Miami Isopycnic-Coordinate Ocean Model. Final report

• Main Authors: Bleck, Rainer, Rooth, Claes G.H., Okeefe, Sawdey
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: 16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER; CLIMATE MODELS; COMPRESSIBILITY; CONVECTION; EVALUATION; PRECIPITATION; RESOLUTION; RIVERS; RUNOFF; SENSITIVITY; TRANSPORT; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/760706; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/760706; https://doi.org/10.2172/760706

The objective of this project was to test the ability of the Miami Isopycnic-Coordinate Ocean Model (MICOM) to simulate the global ocean circulation, setting the stage for the model's incorporation into coupled global climate models. An existing basin-scale model will be expanded to global domain; suitable atmospheric forcing fields, including precipitation and river runoff, will be selected; the modeling of ayssal flow will be improved by incorporating compressibility and particularly thermobaric effects; a sea-ice model will be added; parameterization options will be explored for subgrid-scale deep convection; parallel coarse- and fine-mesh simulations will be carried out to investigate the impact of grid resolution; the sensitivity of the model's solution to magnitude of vertical (diapycnal) exchange coefficient will be studied; and long-term trends in meridional heat transport and water-mass properties in model solutions will be documented and interpreted.