Abstract
A coupled atmosphere-ocean model developed at the Institute for Space Studies at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Russell et al., 1995) was used to verify the validity of Haney-type surface thermal boundary condition, which linearly connects net downward surface heat fluxQ to air/sea temperature difference ΔT by a relaxation coefficientk. The model was initiated from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) atmospheric observations for 1 December 1977, and from the National Ocean Data Center (NODC) global climatological mean December temperature and salinity fields at 1°x 1° resolution. The time step is 7.5 minutes. We integrated the model for 450 days and obtained a complete model-generated global data set of daily mean downward net surface fluxQ, surface air temperatureT A, and sea surface temperatureT O. Then, we calculated the cross-correlation coefficients (CCC) betweenQ and ΔT. The ensemble mean CCC fields show (a) no correlation betweenQ and ΔT in the equatiorial regions, and (b) evident correlation (CCC≥0.7) betweenQ and ΔT in the middle and high latitudes. Additionally, we did the variance analysis and found that whenk=120 W m−2K−1, the two standard deviations, σQ and σκδT , are quite close in the middle and high latitudes. These results agree quite well with a previous research (Chu et al., 1998) on analyzing the NCEP re-analyzed surface data, except that a smaller value ofk (80 W m−2K−1) was found in the previous study.
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Chu, P.C., Yuchun, C. & Shihua, L. Evaluation of Haney-type surface thermal boundary conditions using a coupled atmosphere and ocean model. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 18, 355–375 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02919315
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02919315