ALBERT

Description: The Eddy Kinetic Energy (EKE) associated with the Subtropical Countercurrent (STCC) in the western subtropical South Pacific is known to exhibit substantial seasonal and decadal variability. Using an eddy-permitting ocean general circulation model, which is able to reproduce the observed, salient features of the seasonal cycles of shear, stratification, baroclinic production and the associated EKE, we investigate the decadal changes of EKE. We show that the STCC region exhibits, uniquely among the subtropical gyres of the world’s oceans, significant, atmospherically forced, decadal EKE variability. The decadal variations are driven by changing vertical shear between the STCC in the upper 300 m and the South Equatorial Current below, predominantly caused by variations in STCC strength associated with a changing meridional density gradient. In the 1970s, an increased meridional density gradient results in EKE twice as large as in later decades in the model. Utilizing sensitivity experiments, decadal variations in the wind field are shown to be the essential driver. Local wind stress curl anomalies associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) lead to up- and downwelling of the thermocline, inducing strengthening or weakening of the STCC and the associated EKE. Additionally, remote wind stress curl anomalies in the eastern subtropical South Pacific, which are not related to the IPO, generate density anomalies that propagate westward as Rossby waves and can account for up to 30–40 % of the density anomalies in the investigated region.

Description: A global ocean model with 1/12∘ horizontal resolution is used to assess the seasonal cycle of surface Eddy Kinetic Energy (EKE). The model reproduces the salient features of the observed mean surface EKE, including amplitude and phase of its seasonal cycle in most parts of the ocean. In all subtropical gyres of the Pacific and Atlantic, EKE peaks in summer down to a depth of ∼350 m, below which the seasonal cycle is weak. Investigation of the possible driving mechanisms reveals the seasonal changes in the thermal interactions with the atmosphere to be the most likely cause of the summer maximum of EKE. The development of the seasonal thermocline in spring and summer is accompanied by stronger mesoscale variations in the horizontal temperature gradients near the surface which corresponds, by thermal wind balance, to an intensification of mesoscale velocity anomalies towards the surface.

Description: Oceanic eddies are an important component in preconditioning the central Labrador Sea (LS) for deep convection and in restratifying the convected water. This study investigates the different sources and impacts of Eddy Kinetic Energy (EKE) and its temporal variability in the LS with the help of a 52-year long hindcast simulation of a 1/20° ocean model. Irminger Rings (IR) are generated in the West Greenland Current (WGC) between 60 and 62°N, mainly affect preconditioning and limit the northward extent of the convection area. The IR exhibit a seasonal cycle and decadal variations linked to the WGC strength, varying with the circulation of the subpolar gyre. The mean and temporal variations of IR generation can be attributed to changes in deep ocean baroclinic and upper ocean barotropic instabilities at comparable magnitudes. The main source of EKE and restratification in the central LS are Convective Eddies (CE). They are generated by baroclinic instabilities near the bottom of the mixed layer during and after convection. The CE have a mid-depth core and reflect the hydrographic properties of the convected water mass with a distinct minimum in potential vorticity. Their seasonal to decadal variability is tightly connected to the local atmospheric forcing and the associated air-sea heat fluxes. A third class of eddies in the LS are the Boundary Current Eddies shed from the Labrador Current (LC). Since they are mostly confined to the vicinity of the LC, these eddies appear to exert only minor influence on preconditioning and restratification.

Description: The Agulhas Current, the western boundary current of the South Indian Ocean, has been shown to play an important role in the connectivity between the Indian and Atlantic oceans. The greater Agulhas Current system is highly dominated by mesoscale dynamics. To investigate their influence on the regional and global circulations, a family of high-resolution ocean general circulation model configurations based on the NEMO code has been developed. Horizontal resolution refinement is achieved by embedding “nests” covering the South Atlantic and the western Indian oceans at 1/10∘ (INALT10) and 1/20∘ (INALT20) within global hosts with coarser resolutions. Nests and hosts are connected through two-way interaction, allowing the nests not only to receive boundary conditions from their respective host but also to feed back the impact of regional dynamics onto the global ocean. A double-nested configuration at 1/60∘ resolution (INALT60) has been developed to gain insights into submesoscale processes within the Agulhas Current system. Large-scale measures such as the Drake Passage transport and the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation are rather robust among the different configurations, indicating the important role of the hosts in providing a consistent embedment of the regionally refined grids into the global circulation. The dynamics of the Agulhas Current system strongly depend on the representation of mesoscale processes. Both the southward-flowing Agulhas Current and the northward-flowing Agulhas Undercurrent increase in strength with increasing resolution towards more realistic values, which suggests the importance of improving mesoscale dynamics as well as bathymetric slopes along this narrow western boundary current regime. The exploration of numerical choices such as lateral boundary conditions and details of the implementation of surface wind stress forcing demonstrates the range of solutions within any given configuration.

Description: We present a new framework for global ocean- sea-ice model simulations based on phase 2 of the Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP-2), making use of the surface dataset based on the Japanese 55-year atmospheric reanalysis for driving ocean-sea-ice models (JRA55-do).We motivate the use of OMIP-2 over the framework for the first phase of OMIP (OMIP-1), previously referred to as the Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments (COREs), via the evaluation of OMIP-1 and OMIP-2 simulations from 11 state-of-the-science global ocean-sea-ice models. In the present evaluation, multi-model ensemble means and spreads are calculated separately for the OMIP-1 and OMIP-2 simulations and overall performance is assessed considering metrics commonly used by ocean modelers. Both OMIP-1 and OMIP-2 multi-model ensemble ranges capture observations in more than 80% of the time and region for most metrics, with the multi-model ensemble spread greatly exceeding the difference between the means of the two datasets. Many features, including some climatologically relevant ocean circulation indices, are very similar between OMIP-1 and OMIP- 2 simulations, and yet we could also identify key qualitative improvements in transitioning from OMIP-1 to OMIP- 2. For example, the sea surface temperatures of the OMIP- 2 simulations reproduce the observed global warming during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the warming slowdown in the 2000s and the more recent accelerated warming, which were absent in OMIP-1, noting that the last feature is part of the design of OMIP-2 because OMIP-1 forcing stopped in 2009. A negative bias in the sea-ice concentration in summer of both hemispheres in OMIP-1 is significantly reduced in OMIP-2. The overall reproducibility of both seasonal and interannual variations in sea surface temperature and sea surface height (dynamic sea level) is improved in OMIP-2. These improvements represent a new capability of the OMIP-2 framework for evaluating processlevel responses using simulation results. Regarding the sensitivity of individual models to the change in forcing, the models show well-ordered responses for the metrics that are directly forced, while they show less organized responses for those that require complex model adjustments. Many of the remaining common model biases may be attributed either to errors in representing important processes in ocean-sea-ice models, some of which are expected to be reduced by using finer horizontal and/or vertical resolutions, or to shared biases and limitations in the atmospheric forcing. In particular, further efforts are warranted to resolve remaining issues in OMIP-2 such as the warm bias in the upper layer, the mismatch between the observed and simulated variability of heat content and thermosteric sea level before 1990s, and the erroneous representation of deep and bottom water formations and circulations. We suggest that such problems can be resolved through collaboration between those developing models (including parameterizations) and forcing datasets. Overall, the present assessment justifies our recommendation that future model development and analysis studies use the OMIP-2 framework.