Publikationsdatum:
2022-05-25
Beschreibung:
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2008
Beschreibung:
Coupled ocean/atmosphere simulations exhibit systematicwarm biases over the SouthWest
African (SWA) coastal region. Recent investigations indicate that coastal ocean dynamics
may play an important role in determining the SST patterns, but none of them provide a
detailed analysis. In this study, I analyze simulations produced both by coupled models and
by idealized models. Then results are interpreted on the basis of a theoretical framework.
Finally the conclusion is reached that the insufficient resolution of the ocean component in
the coupled model is responsible for the warm biases over the SWA coastal region. The
coarse resolution used in the ocean model has an artificially stretched coastal side-wall
boundary layer, which induces a smaller upwelling velocity in the boundary layer. The
vertical heat transport decreases even when the volume transport is unchanged because of
its nonlinear relationship with the magnitude of the upwelling velocity. Based on the scaling
of the idealized model simulations, a simplified calculation shows that the vertical heat
transport is inversely proportional to the zonal resolution over the coastal region. Therefore,
increasing the horizontal resolution can considerably improve the coastal SST simulation,
and better resolve the coastal dynamics.
Schlagwort(e):
Ocean-atmosphere interaction
;
Computer simulation
Repository-Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Materialart:
Thesis
Format:
application/pdf
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