HR: 16:30h
AN: OS44A-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Improved representation of tidal currents within an OGCM
AU: * Dobslaw, H
EM: henryk.dobslaw@tu-dresden.de
AF: Dresden University of Technology Institute for Planetary Geodesy, Lohrmann Observatory, Dresden, 01062 Germany
AU: Thomas, M
EM: mthom@rcs.urz.tu-dresden.de
AF: Dresden University of Technology Institute for Planetary Geodesy, Lohrmann Observatory, Dresden, 01062 Germany
AB: The representation of tidal currents has been recently improved within the Ocean Model for Circulation and Tides (OMCT). The model has been originally developed from Hamburg Ocean Primitive Equation Model (HOPE) by coupling with an ephemeral tidal model and by applying real-time atmospheric forcing from ECMWF analyses. The model allows to dispense the traditional separation of (baroclinic) general ocean circulation and (barotropic) tidal currents, as well as to account for tidal motions due to the complete lunisolar tidal potential simultaneously. As typically for free tidal models, OMCT simulated tidal oscillation systems show significant deviations from data constrained model solutions as FES2002. Using tidal velocities and elevations from Zahel's assimilated solution to constrain the free OMCT solution, rms values for M2 tidal elevations have been reduced from 28cm to 14cm compared to a globally distributed pelagic tide gauge dataset. Considering the comparatively coarse model resolution of 1.875°, improved representation of tidal elevations and therefore tidal flows allows to analyse nonlinearities between circulation and tides more realistically, and so to further study the impact of tidal mixing on the general ocean circulation.
DE: 4532 General circulation (1218, 1222)
DE: 4560 Surface waves and tides (1222)
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005