2004 LOM Workshop

Wednesday 9:40 - 10:00 a.m.

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Latitude Dependent Vertical Mixing: OGCM results and the tropical thermocline

VMCanuto, AHoward, YCheng and RLMiller
NASA-GISS
vcanuto@giss.nasa.gov

ABSTRACT

Measurements by Gregg et al.(2003) have shown that the rate of dissipation of internal gravity waves is latitude dependent. The GISS-mixing model is used to transform this information into a latitude dependent momentum, heat and salt diffusivities. A 3D-OGCM is then run. Global avarage T/S profiles are closer to the Lavitus data than those without latitude dependence. The North Atlantic stream function is increased from 19 to 20Sv while the northtward heat transport is reduced from 1.36 to 1.24 Pw. The model also yields a much sharper equatorial thermocline in both Atlantic and Pacific than without the latitude dependence. A sharp equatorial thermocline is a necessary condition for a reliable descripion of the ENSO variations of SST.

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LOM Users' Workshop, February 9-11, 2004