Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © The Authors, 2004. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 52 (2005): 1202-1214, doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2005.03.005.
Description:
A simple analytical/numerical model has been developed for computing the evolution,
over periods of up to a few hours, of the current and temperature profile in the
upper layer of the ocean. The model is based upon conservation laws for heat and
momentum, and employs an eddy diffusion parameterisation which is dependent on
both the wind speed and the wind stress applied at the sea surface. Other parameters
such as the bulk-skin surface temperature difference and CO2 flux are determined
by application of the Molecular Oceanic Boundary Layer Model (MOBLAM)
of Schlussel and Soloviev. A similar model, for the current profile only, predicts a
temporary increase in wave breaking intensity and decrease in wave height under
conditions where the wind speed increases suddenly, such as, for example, during
gusts and squalls. The model results are compared with measurements from the
lagrangian Skin Depth Experimental Profiler (SkinDeEP) surface profiling instrument
made during the 1999 MOCE-5 field experiment in the waters around Baja
California. SkinDeEP made repeated profiles of temperature within the upper few
metres of the water column. Given that no tuning was performed in the model,
and that the model does not take account of stratification, the results of the model
runs are in rather good agreement with the observations. The model may be suitable
as an interface between time-independent models of processes very near the
surface, and larger-scale three-dimensional time-dependent ocean circulation models.
A straightforward extension of the model should also be suitable for making
time-dependent computations of gas concentration in the near-surface layer of the
ocean.
Description:
The work was funded by Research Council of Norway projects 127872/720
and 155923/700, by the Norwegian high performance computing consortium
under grant NN2932K, and by European Commission Contract No. ERBFMBICT983162.
Additional funding was provided by NSF grant OCE-0326814.
Keywords:
Temperature
;
Current
;
Turbulence
;
Sea surface
;
Mathematical modelling
;
Profiling instrument
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
Format:
366912 bytes
Format:
application/pdf
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