scholarly journals A nested Atlantic-Mediterranean Sea general circulation model for operational forecasting

Ocean Science ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Oddo ◽  
M. Adani ◽  
N. Pinardi ◽  
C. Fratianni ◽  
M. Tonani ◽  
...  

Abstract. A new numerical general circulation ocean model for the Mediterranean Sea has been implemented nested within an Atlantic general circulation model within the framework of the Marine Environment and Security for the European Area project (MERSEA, Desaubies, 2006). A 4-year twin experiment was carried out from January 2004 to December 2007 with two different models to evaluate the impact on the Mediterranean Sea circulation of open lateral boundary conditions in the Atlantic Ocean. One model considers a closed lateral boundary in a large Atlantic box and the other is nested in the same box in a global ocean circulation model. Impact was observed comparing the two simulations with independent observations: ARGO for temperature and salinity profiles and tide gauges and along-track satellite observations for the sea surface height. The improvement in the nested Atlantic-Mediterranean model with respect to the closed one is particularly evident in the salinity characteristics of the Modified Atlantic Water and in the Mediterranean sea level seasonal variability.

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1093-1127 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Oddo ◽  
M. Adani ◽  
N. Pinardi ◽  
C. Fratianni ◽  
M. Tonani ◽  
...  

Abstract. A new numerical general circulation ocean model for the Mediterranean Sea has been implemented nested within an Atlantic general circulation model within the framework of the Marine Environment and Security for the European Area project (MERSEA, Desaubies, 2006). A 4-year twin experiment was carried out from January 2004 to December 2007 with two different models to evaluate the impact on the Mediterranean Sea circulation of open lateral boundary conditions in the Atlantic Ocean. One model considers a closed lateral boundary in a large Atlantic box and the other is nested in the same box in a global ocean circulation model. Impact was observed comparing the two simulations with independent observations: ARGO for temperature and salinity profiles and tide gauges and along-track satellite observations for the sea surface height. The improvement in the nested Atlantic-Mediterranean model with respect to the closed one is particularly evident in the salinity characteristics of the Modified Atlantic Water and in the Mediterranean sea level seasonal variability.


1997 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 116-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Legutke ◽  
E. Maier-Reimkr ◽  
A. Stössel ◽  
A. Hellbach

A global ocean general circulation model has been coupled with a dynamic thermodynamic sea-ice model. This model has been spun-up in a 1000 year integration using daily atmosphere model data. Main water masses and currents are reproduced as well as the seasonal characteristics of the ice cover of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Model results for the Southern Ocean, however, show the ice cover as too thin, and there are large permanent polynyas in the Weddell and Ross Seas. These polynyas are due to a large upward oceanic heat flux caused by haline rejection during the freezing of sea ice. Sensitivity studies were performed to test several ways of treating the sea-surface salinity and the rejected brine. The impact on the ice cover, water-mass characteristics, and ocean circulation are described.


1997 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 116-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Legutke ◽  
E. Maier-Reimkr ◽  
A. Stössel ◽  
A. Hellbach

A global ocean general circulation model has been coupled with a dynamic thermodynamic sea-ice model. This model has been spun-up in a 1000 year integration using daily atmosphere model data. Main water masses and currents are reproduced as well as the seasonal characteristics of the ice cover of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Model results for the Southern Ocean, however, show the ice cover as too thin, and there are large permanent polynyas in the Weddell and Ross Seas. These polynyas are due to a large upward oceanic heat flux caused by haline rejection during the freezing of sea ice. Sensitivity studies were performed to test several ways of treating the sea-surface salinity and the rejected brine. The impact on the ice cover, water-mass characteristics, and ocean circulation are described.


1997 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 111-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Achim Stössel

This paper investigates the long-term impact of sea ice on global climate using a global sea-ice–ocean general circulation model (OGCM). The sea-ice component involves state-of-the-art dynamics; the ocean component consists of a 3.5° × 3.5° × 11 layer primitive-equation model. Depending on the physical description of sea ice, significant changes are detected in the convective activity, in the hydrographic properties and in the thermohaline circulation of the ocean model. Most of these changes originate in the Southern Ocean, emphasizing the crucial role of sea ice in this marginally stably stratified region of the world's oceans. Specifically, if the effect of brine release is neglected, the deep layers of the Southern Ocean warm up considerably; this is associated with a weakening of the Southern Hemisphere overturning cell. The removal of the commonly used “salinity enhancement” leads to a similar effect. The deep-ocean salinity is almost unaffected in both experiments. Introducing explicit new-ice thickness growth in partially ice-covered gridcells leads to a substantial increase in convective activity, especially in the Southern Ocean, with a concomitant significant cooling and salinification of the deep ocean. Possible mechanisms for the resulting interactions between sea-ice processes and deep-ocean characteristics are suggested.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1423-1445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianpiero Cossarini ◽  
Stefano Querin ◽  
Cosimo Solidoro ◽  
Gianmaria Sannino ◽  
Paolo Lazzari ◽  
...  

Abstract. In this paper, we present a coupling scheme between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model (MITgcm) and the Biogeochemical Flux Model (BFM). The MITgcm and BFM are widely used models for geophysical fluid dynamics and for ocean biogeochemistry, respectively, and they benefit from the support of active developers and user communities. The MITgcm is a state-of-the-art general circulation model for simulating the ocean and the atmosphere. This model is fully 3-D (including the non-hydrostatic term of momentum equations) and is characterized by a finite-volume discretization and a number of additional features enabling simulations from global (O(107) m) to local scales (O(100) m). The BFM is a biogeochemical model based on plankton functional type formulations, and it simulates the cycling of a number of constituents and nutrients within marine ecosystems. The online coupling presented in this paper is based on an open-source code, and it is characterized by a modular structure. Modularity preserves the potentials of the two models, allowing for a sustainable programming effort to handle future evolutions in the two codes. We also tested specific model options and integration schemes to balance the numerical accuracy against the computational performance. The coupling scheme allows us to solve several processes that are not considered by each of the models alone, including light attenuation parameterizations along the water column, phytoplankton and detritus sinking, external inputs, and surface and bottom fluxes. Moreover, this new coupled hydrodynamic–biogeochemical model has been configured and tested against an idealized problem (a cyclonic gyre in a mid-latitude closed basin) and a realistic case study (central part of the Mediterranean Sea in 2006–2012). The numerical results consistently reproduce the interplay of hydrodynamics and biogeochemistry in both the idealized case and Mediterranean Sea experiments. The former reproduces correctly the alternation of surface bloom and deep chlorophyll maximum dynamics driven by the seasonal cycle of winter vertical mixing and summer stratification; the latter simulates the main basin-wide and mesoscale spatial features of the physical and biochemical variables in the Mediterranean, thus demonstrating the applicability of the new coupled model to a wide range of ocean biogeochemistry problems.


2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 933-948 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk A. Dijkstra ◽  
Wilbert Weijer

Abstract A study of the stability of the global ocean circulation is performed within a coarse-resolution general circulation model. Using techniques of numerical bifurcation theory, steady states of the global ocean circulation are explicitly calculated as parameters are varied. Under a freshwater flux forcing that is diagnosed from a reference circulation with Levitus surface salinity fields, the global ocean circulation has no multiple equilibria. It is shown how this unique-state regime transforms into a regime with multiple equilibria as the pattern of the freshwater flux is changed in the northern North Atlantic Ocean. In the multiple-equilibria regime, there are two branches of stable steady solutions: one with a strong northern overturning in the Atlantic and one with hardly any northern overturning. Along the unstable branch that connects both stable solution branches (here for the first time computed for a global ocean model), the strength of the southern sinking in the South Atlantic changes substantially. The existence of the multiple-equilibria regime critically depends on the spatial pattern of the freshwater flux field and explains the hysteresis behavior as found in many previous modeling studies.


2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Wenzel ◽  
Jens Schröter

Abstract The mass budget of the ocean in the period 1993–2003 is studied with a general circulation model. The model has a free surface and conserves mass rather than volume; that is, freshwater is exchanged with the atmosphere via precipitation and evaporation and inflow from land is taken into account. The mass is redistributed by the ocean circulation. Furthermore, the ocean’s volume changes by steric expansion with changing temperature and salinity. To estimate the mass changes, the ocean model is constrained by sea level measurements from the Ocean Topography Experiment (TOPEX)/Poseidon mission as well as by hydrographic data. The modeled ocean mass change within the years 2002–03 compares favorably to measurements from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), and the evolution of the global mean sea level for the period 1993–2003 with annual and interannual variations can be reproduced to a 0.15-cm rms difference. Its trend has been measured as 3.37 mm yr−1 while the constrained model gives 3.34 mm yr−1 considering only the area covered by measurements (3.25 mm yr−1 for the total ocean). A steric rise of 2.50 mm yr−1 is estimated in this period, as is a gain in the ocean mass that is equivalent to an eustatic rise of 0.74 mm yr−1. The amplitude and phase (day of maximum value since 1 January) of the superimposed eustatic annual cycle are also estimated to be 4.6 mm and 278°, respectively. The corresponding values for the semiannual cycle are 0.42 mm and 120°. The trends in the eustatic sea level are not equally distributed. In the Atlantic Ocean (80°S–67°N) the eustatic sea level rises by 1.8 mm yr−1 and in the Indian Ocean (80°S–30°N) it rises by 1.4 mm yr−1, but it falls by −0.20 mm yr−1 in the Pacific Ocean (80°S–67°N). The latter is mainly caused by a loss of mass through transport divergence in the Pacific sector of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (−0.42 Sv; Sv ≡ 109 kg s−1) that is not balanced by the net surface water supply. The consequence of this uneven eustatic rise is a shift of the oceanic center of mass toward the Atlantic Ocean and to the north.


Ocean Science ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Ahumada ◽  
A. Cruzado

Abstract. The Princeton Ocean Model – POM (Blumberg and Mellor, 1987) has been implemented in the Northwestern Mediterranean nested (in one-way off-line mode) to a general circulation model of the Mediterranean Sea – OGCM (Pinardi and Masetti, 2000; Demirov and Pinardi, 2002) in order to investigate if this model configuration is capable of reproducing the major features of the circulation as known from observations and to improve what has been made by previous numerical modeling works. According to the model results, the large-scale cyclonic circulation in the northern part of the Northwestern Mediterranean is, at least in the upper layers, less coherent in winter and spring than in summer and autumn. Furthermore, there is evidence that the mesoscale structure (eddies and meanders) is, during all year, a significant dynamic characteristic in this region of the Mediterranean Sea. Finally, concerning the circulation in the lower layers, the model results have confirmed that Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) and Western Mediterranean Deep Water (WMDW) follow essentially a cyclonic path during all year.


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