A. Birol Kara, Alan J. Wallcraft, and Harley Hurlburt, Naval Research Lab.
A coarse resolution (0.72 degree) HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) is set up for the Equatorial Pacific. The model domain spans 30N-30S in latitude and 70W to 110E in longitude with relaxation to GDEM3 climatology near 30N and 30S. The latitudinal resolution is increased to 0.36 degrees near the equator to improve HYCOM's equatorial dynamics. Climatologically--forced model simulations were performed to examine HYCOM performance in predicting sea surface temperature (SST). Model simulations are atmospherically--forced simulations (i.e., no assimilation of any SST data), and there are no relaxation to any SST climatology. There is only weak sea surface salinity relaxation in the simulations. Using the atmospheric forcing from , the European Centre for Medium--Range Weather Forecasts~(ECMWF) Re--Analysis~(ERA15), SST predictions from five mixed layer models is analyzed: KPP, GISS, MY2.5, KT and PWP. We get accurate SST based on accurate atmospheric forcing even with no assimilation of SST data from all simulations. However, KPP, GISS, MY2.5 slightly outperform KT and PWP.