A traceable physical calibration of the vertical advection-diffusion equation for modelling ocean heat uptake

Huber, M., Tailleux, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8998-9107, Ferreira, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3243-9774, Kuhlbrodt, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2328-6729 and Gregory, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1296-8644 (2015) A traceable physical calibration of the vertical advection-diffusion equation for modelling ocean heat uptake. Geophysical Research Letters, 42 (7). pp. 2333-2341. ISSN 0094-8276 doi: 10.1002/2015GL063383

Abstract/Summary

The classic vertical advection-diffusion (VAD) balance is a central concept in studying the ocean heat budget, in particular in simple climate models (SCMs). Here we present a new framework to calibrate the parameters of the VAD equation to the vertical ocean heat balance of two fully-coupled climate models that is traceable to the models’ circulation as well as to vertical mixing and diffusion processes. Based on temperature diagnostics, we derive an effective vertical velocity w∗ and turbulent diffusivity k∗ for each individual physical process. In steady-state, we find that the residual vertical velocity and diffusivity change sign in mid-depth, highlighting the different regional contributions of isopycnal and diapycnal diffusion in balancing the models’ residual advection and vertical mixing. We quantify the impacts of the time-evolution of the effective quantities under a transient 1%CO2 simulation and make the link to the parameters of currently employed SCMs.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/39575
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Walker Institute Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	American Geophysical Union
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