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The impact of vertical resolution and upper ocean physical parameterizations on air-sea interaction in the global coupled ocean-atmosphere system
Jay F. Shriver, James G. Richman, Elizabeth M. Douglass, Deborah S. Franklin, E. Joseph Metzger
Naval Research Laboratory
(Abstract received 04/29/2015 for session X)
ABSTRACT
The Naval Research Laboratory is developing an Earth System Prediction Capability (ESPC) that will provide global environmental information to meet Navy and DoD operations and planning needs from under the sea to the upper atmosphere. It will be a fully coupled global atmosphere/ocean/ice/wave/land prediction system providing daily predictions out to 16 days and weekly ensembles out to 90 days. As part of this system development we are exploring changes to the stress formulation and vertical resolution used in the ocean model.Traditionally, the wind stress over the ocean is estimated independent of the state of the ocean. Recently published research strongly suggests that the common practice of estimating the surface wind stress as a function of the atmospheric winds alone is incomplete, and that the wind stress is impacted by air-sea interaction. This work examines the impact of including the effects associated with air-sea interaction through the use of small-scale sea surface temperature (SST) and wind-current shear in the wind stress formulation with a focus on changes in the mean and variability of the wind stress magnitude, eddy kinetic energy (EKE), wind work and mesoscale eddy properties. The inclusion of high resolution SST in the wind stress parameterization, which mimics the modifying of atmospheric boundary layer stability, increases the wind stress magnitude across the tropics, the North Atlantic and Pacific subpolar gyres and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current region. The additional inclusion of ocean-atmosphere shear, which mimics the inertial coupling of the atmospheric and oceanic boundary layers, results in weaker stress increases over most of the ocean compared to traditional estimates. Results exploring changes to the ocean model’s vertical structure and results from the coupled system will also be discussed.
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2015 LOM Workshop, Copenhagen, Denmark June 2nd - 4th, 2015