scholarly journals Asymmetric Ocean Response to Atmospheric Forcing in an Island Wake: A 35-Year High-Resolution Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. R. Alves ◽  
Ricardo Tomé ◽  
Rui M. A. Caldeira ◽  
Pedro M. A. Miranda

The present study assesses the thermal variability of the regional ocean around Madeira Island, in intraseasonal and interdecadal time scales, using a 35-year (1983–2017), 3-km horizontal resolution ocean simulation forced by a co-located atmospheric simulation, with SODA and ERA5 boundary and initial conditions, respectively. Atmosphere–ocean interactions in this region are found to be driven by the variability of two quasi-permanent tip-jets, located at the island west and east tips, especially during the summer months. The ocean response is found to be larger in the regions of higher jets speed variability, but its thermal response is highly asymmetrical. On the interdecadal time scale, a significant intensification of both jets during the analyzed period is more prominent in the east tip, but the thermal signature is mostly associated with a much reduced sea surface temperature trend near the west tip.

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Cesini ◽  
S. Morelli ◽  
F. Parmiggiani

Abstract. Numerical simulations of a bora event, recently occurred in the Adriatic area, are presented. Two reference runs at different horizontal resolution (about 20km and 8km) describe the case. Initial conditions for the atmospheric model integration are obtained from ECMWF analyses. Satellite data are used for comparisons. A further run at horizontal resolution of 8km, using initial satellite sea surface temperatures, is performed to evaluate their impact on the low level wind over the Adriatic Sea. All the simulations are carried out with 50 layers in the vertical. Numerous aspects of the simulations are found to be in agreement with the understanding as well as the observational knowledge of bora distinctive characteristics. Satellite data and model results indicate that a more realistic simulation of the bora wind over the sea is achieved using the model with 8km horizontal resolution and that the low level wind in this case is sensitive, though weakly, to the difference between the used sea surface temperature fields. Simulation results also show that both wind intensity and the area around wind peaks tend to increase when relatively higher sea surface temperatures are used.


2016 ◽  
Vol 144 (4) ◽  
pp. 1299-1320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Lombardo ◽  
Eric Sinsky ◽  
Yan Jia ◽  
Michael M. Whitney ◽  
James Edson

Abstract Mesoscale simulations of sea breezes are sensitive to the analysis product used to initialize the simulations, primarily due to the representation of the coastline and the coastal sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the analyses. The use of spatially coarse initial conditions, relative to the horizontal resolution of the mesoscale model grid, can introduce errors in the representation of coastal SSTs, in part due to the incorrect designation of the land surface. As a result, portions of the coastal ocean are initialized with land surface temperature values and vice versa. The diurnal variation of the sea surface is typically smaller than over land on meso- and synoptic-scale time scales. Therefore, it is common practice to retain a temporally static SST in numerical simulations, causing initial SST errors to persist through the duration of the simulation. These SST errors influence horizontal coastal temperature and humidity gradients and thereby the development of the sea-breeze circulations. The authors developed a technique to modify the initial surface conditions created from a reanalysis product [North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR)] for simulations of two sea-breeze events over the New England coast to more accurately represent the finescale structure of the coastline and the spatial representation of the coastal land surface and SST. Using this technique, the coastal SST (2-m temperature) RMSE is reduced from as much as 25°–1°C (7°–1°C), contributing to a more accurate propagation of the sea-breeze front. Techniques described in this work may be important for mesoscale simulations and forecasts of other coastal phenomena.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syamsul Hidayat ◽  
Mulia Purba ◽  
Jorina Waworuntu

The purposes of this study were to determine the variability of temperature and its relation to regional processes in the Senunu Bay. The result showed clear vertical stratifications i.e., mixed layer thickness about 39-119 m with isotherm of 27°C, thermocline layer thickness about 83-204 m with isotherm of 14–26°C, and  the deeper layer from the thermocline lower limit to the sea bottom with isotherm <13°C. Temperature and the thickness of each layers varied with season in which during the Northwest Monsoon the temperature was warmer and the mixed layer was thicker than those during Southeast Monsoon. During Southeast Monsoon, the thermocline layer rose  about 24 m. The 2001, 2006, and 2009 (weak La Nina years),  the Indonesia Throughflow (ITF) carried warmer water, deepening thermocline depth and reducing upwelling strength.  In 2003 and 2008 thickening of mixed layer occurred in transition season  was believed  associated with the  arrival of Kelvin Wave from the west. In 2002 and 2004 (weak El Nino period,) ITF carries colder water shallowing thermocline depth and enhancing upwelling strength. In 2007 was believed to be related with positive IODM where the sea surface temperature were decreasing due to intensification of southeast wind which induced strong upwelling. The temperature spectral density of mixed layer and thermocline was influenced by annual, semi-annual, intra-annual and inter-annual period fluctuations. The cross-correlation between wind and temperature showed significant value in the annual period.  Keywords: temperature, thermocline, variability, ENSO, IODM.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prasad G. Thoppil ◽  
Sergey Frolov ◽  
Clark D. Rowley ◽  
Carolyn A. Reynolds ◽  
Gregg A. Jacobs ◽  
...  

AbstractMesoscale eddies dominate energetics of the ocean, modify mass, heat and freshwater transport and primary production in the upper ocean. However, the forecast skill horizon for ocean mesoscales in current operational models is shorter than 10 days: eddy-resolving ocean models, with horizontal resolution finer than 10 km in mid-latitudes, represent mesoscale dynamics, but mesoscale initial conditions are hard to constrain with available observations. Here we analyze a suite of ocean model simulations at high (1/25°) and lower (1/12.5°) resolution and compare with an ensemble of lower-resolution simulations. We show that the ensemble forecast significantly extends the predictability of the ocean mesoscales to between 20 and 40 days. We find that the lack of predictive skill in data assimilative deterministic ocean models is due to high uncertainty in the initial location and forecast of mesoscale features. Ensemble simulations account for this uncertainty and filter-out unconstrained scales. We suggest that advancements in ensemble analysis and forecasting should complement the current focus on high-resolution modeling of the ocean.


1986 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.M Williams ◽  
A.F Carlucci ◽  
S.M Henrichs ◽  
E.S Van Vleet ◽  
S.G Horrigan ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 30457-30485 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Groenemeijer ◽  
G. C. Craig

Abstract. The stochastic Plant-Craig scheme for deep convection was implemented in the COSMO mesoscale model and used for ensemble forecasting. Ensembles consisting of 100 48 h forecasts at 7 km horizontal resolution were generated for a 2000 × 2000 km domain covering central Europe. Forecasts were made for seven case studies and characterized by different large-scale meteorological environments. Each 100 member ensemble consisted of 10 groups of 10 members, with each group driven by boundary and initial conditions from a selected member from the global ECMWF Ensemble Prediction System. The precipitation variability within and among these groups of members was computed, and it was found that the relative contribution to the ensemble variance introduced by the stochastic convection scheme was substantial, amounting to as much as 76% of the total variance in the ensemble in one of the studied cases. The impact of the scheme was not confined to the grid scale, and typically contributed 25–50% of the total variance even after the precipitation fields had been smoothed to a resolution of 35 km. The variability of precipitation introduced by the scheme was approximately proportional to the total amount of convection that occurred, while the variability due to large-scale conditions changed from case to case, being highest in cases exhibiting strong mid-tropospheric flow and pronounced meso- to synoptic scale vorticity extrema. The stochastic scheme was thus found to be an important source of variability in precipitation cases of weak large-scale flow lacking strong vorticity extrema, but high convective activity.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1895-1911 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Vandenbulcke ◽  
A. Capet ◽  
J. M. Beckers ◽  
M. Grégoire ◽  
S. Besiktepe

Abstract. In this article, we describe the first operational implementation of the GHER hydrodynamic model. This happened onboard the research vessel "Alliance", in the context of the Turkish Straits System 2008 campaign, which aimed at the real-time characterization of the Marmara Sea and (south-western) Black Sea. The model performed badly at first, mainly because of poor initial conditions. Hence, as the model includes a reduced-rank extended Kalman filter assimilation scheme, after a hindcast where sea surface temperature and temperature and salinity profiles were assimilated, the model yielded realistic forecasts. Furthermore, the time required to run a one-day simulation (about 5 min of simulation, or 10 min with pre-processing and data transfers included) is very limited and thus operational use of the model is possible.


2018 ◽  
Vol 146 (7) ◽  
pp. 2065-2088 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei He ◽  
Derek J. Posselt ◽  
Naveen N. Narisetty ◽  
Colin M. Zarzycki ◽  
Vijayan N. Nair

Abstract This work demonstrates the use of Sobol’s sensitivity analysis framework to examine multivariate input–output relationships in dynamical systems. The methodology allows simultaneous exploration of the effect of changes in multiple inputs, and accommodates nonlinear interaction effects among parameters in a computationally affordable way. The concept is illustrated via computation of the sensitivities of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM)-simulated tropical cyclones to changes in model initial conditions. Specifically, Sobol’s variance-based sensitivity analysis is used to examine the response of cyclone intensity, cloud radiative forcing, cloud content, and precipitation rate to changes in initial conditions in an idealized AGCM-simulated tropical cyclone (TC). Control factors of interest include the following: initial vortex size and intensity, environmental sea surface temperature, vertical lapse rate, and midlevel relative humidity. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates systematic increases in TC intensity with increasing sea surface temperature and atmospheric temperature lapse rates, consistent with many previous studies. However, there are nonlinear interactions among control factors that affect the response of the precipitation rate, cloud content, and radiative forcing. In addition, sensitivities to control factors differ significantly when the model is run at different resolution, and coarse-resolution simulations are unable to produce a realistic TC. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of a quantitative sensitivity analysis framework for the exploration of dynamic system responses to perturbations, and have implications for the generation of ensembles.


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