2004 LOM Workshop

Tuesday 10:20 - 11:30 a.m. Poster Session

Preliminar results on the SENSIVITY OF BIOPHYSICAL MODELING TO MODEL'S VERTICAL COORDINATE REPRESENTATION

M. Olascoaga, E Chassignet, J. Kindle, A. Wallcraft
RSMAS, U. M.
jolascoa@rsmas.miami.edu

ABSTRACT

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A Nutrient-Phytoplankton-Zooplankton-Detritus (NPZD) model is coupled to the Hybrid Coordinate Model (HYCOM) to make assessments of the sensitivity of plankton dynamics modeling to the choice of the model's vertical coordinate representation. An idealized two-dimensional domain (vertical cross section of a meridional channel with free surface and irregular bottom topography) is adopted for this study. The wind stress is chosen to produce upwelling (downwelling) in the west (east) channel's coast. HYCOM's flexibility to the vertical coordinate choice is exploited to perform numerical simulations using: (i) fixed z-levels, (ii) rho-coordinates (MICOM mode), (iii) following topography sigma-levels, and (iv) hybrid (z-, rho-, and sigma- coordinates) layers (standard HYCOM mode). Particular attention is paid to the effects of diapycnal mixing and mixed-layer representations on biophysical interactions modeling in the different experiments.

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LOM Users' Workshop, February 9-11, 2004