HR: 14:40h
AN: OS32C-05    [PDF]
TI: Sensitivity of the Carolina Coastal Ocean Circulation to Open Boundary and Atmospheric Forcing
AU: * Liu, X
EM: xliu2@unity.ncsu.edu
AF: Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State Univ. Campus Box 8208, Raleigh, NC 27695-8208 United States
AU: Xie, L
EM: lian_xie@ncsu.edu
AF: Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State Univ. Campus Box 8208, Raleigh, NC 27695-8208 United States
AU: Pietrafesa, L
EM: len_pietrafesa@ncsu.edu
AF: Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State Univ. Campus Box 8208, Raleigh, NC 27695-8208 United States
AB: The ocean circulation on the continental shelf off the Carolina coast is characterized by a complex flow regime and temporal variability, which is influenced by atmospheric forcing, the Gulf Stream system, complex coastline and bathymetry, river discharge and tidal forcing. In this study, a triple-nested, HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) is used to simulate the coastal ocean circulation on the continental shelf off the Carolina coast and its interactions with the offshore large-scale ocean circulation system. The horizontal mesh size in the innermost domain was set to 1 km, whereas the outermost domain coincides with the near real-time 1/12­’ Atlantic HYCOM Nowcast/Forecast System operated at the Naval Research Laboratory. The intermediate domain uses a mesh size of 3 km. Atmospheric forcing fields for the Carolina coastal region are derived from the NOAA operational ETA model, the ECMWF reanalysis fields and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis fields. These forcing fields are derived at 0.8›¦, 1.125›¦ and 1.875›¦ resolutions, and at intervals of 6 hour, daily and monthly. The sensitivity of the model results to the spatial and temporal resolution of the atmospheric forcing fields is analyzed. To study the dependence of the model sensitivity on the model grid size, single-window simulations at resolutions of 1km, 3km and 9km are carried out using the same forcing fields that were applied to the nested system. Comparisons between the nested and the single domain simulation results will be presented.
DE: 4219 Continental shelf processes
DE: 4255 Numerical modeling
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting