Ocean Component of Models

Examples of Models with Ocean Components

The addition of ocean circulation to climate models is the result of numerous studies that determined the circulation patterns of the ocean with fluid motion. These include the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, with nine years (1990–98) of observations (physical, chemical, and satellite), by approximately 30 nations to determine the baseline conditions for assessing future climate change. The second phase of the World Ocean Circulation experiment was Analysis, Interpretation, Modeling, and Synthesis, ending in 2002, Sophisticated numerical ocean models were also developed to provide a framework for the interpretation of the observations and for the prediction of the future ocean state.

The World Climate Research Programme is studying climate variability and predictability (CLIVAR), with research focusing on interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere and collaboration with companion research projects to study the role of the land surface, snow, ice, and stratospheric processes in climate.

The Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE) began in 1997, to develop better ocean [Page 738]observations and ocean forecasts utilizing improved technology (in-situ and remote) to observe, measure, model, and assimilate data available worldwide to researchers needing comprehensive ocean and marine data and forecasts.

The Argo project, begun in 2000, deploys 3,000 profiling floats (spaced approximately 3 degrees apart throughout the worlds oceans) to collect temperature, velocity, and salinity measurements on the physical state of the upper ocean, with emphasis on seasonal and decadal variability. The collected data will be used for initializing ocean and coupled ocean-atmosphere forecast models, data assimilation, and model testing.

With increasing data on ocean physics, chemistry, and biology, improved models are being created, incorporating the ocean component into computer models, and using more complex computing systems. The Parallel Ocean Program is a publicly available model developed at Los Alamos National Laboratories, using ocean circulation with depth as the vertical coordinate. Researchers, in adapting the Parallel Ocean Program for parallel computers to improve performance, also enhanced the models physical representation of the real ocean. Higher resolution simulations have shown greater agreement with observations of sea-surface height variability in the Gulf Stream.

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