Publication Abstracts

Dubovikov and Canuto 2006

Dubovikov, M.S., and V.M. Canuto, 2006: Complete Eulerian-mean tracer equation for coarse resolution OGCMs. Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn., 100, 197-214, doi:10.1080/03091920600799830.

McDougall and McIntosh showed that the adiabatic mesoscale mixing is represented incompletely in the tracer Eulerian-averaged equation (EAE) of coarse resolution OGCMs. We show that completing EAE requires an adequate decomposition of the mesoscale tracer flux which is achieved by means of transforming mesoscale fields to isopycnal coordinates (IC) where mesoscale dynamics has the simplest form. The transformation results in splitting Fτ into two components and : the former is determined by buoyancy mesoscale dynamics only and has a trivial kinematic dependence on the mean tracer field, the latter is determined by mesoscale tracer dynamics. Thus, the problem of modelling (parameterizing) Fτ in ZC is divided in two stages which can be termed kinematic and dynamic. The kinematic stage consists in adequate decomposing Fτ, and the result is expressed in terms of mesoscale fields. The dynamic stage consists in applying a specific dynamic mesoscale model to parameterize the components of Fτ. In this article, we show that some components of Fτ are missing in ZC-OGCMs tracer equation and that their contribution is of the same order of magnitude as the mesoscale contribution itself. We also show that Fτ has components across mean isopycnals and that their existence is consistent with the adiabatic approximation which requires vanishing all fluxes across isopycnal surfaces. As for practical results, we derive the complete equation for the large scale tracer in ZC-OGCMs and present the parameterization of the terms which have been missing thus far.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{du09000a,
  author={Dubovikov, M. S. and Canuto, V. M.},
  title={Complete Eulerian-mean tracer equation for coarse resolution OGCMs},
  year={2006},
  journal={Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics},
  volume={100},
  pages={197--214},
  doi={10.1080/03091920600799830},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - JOUR
ID  - du09000a
AU  - Dubovikov, M. S.
AU  - Canuto, V. M.
PY  - 2006
TI  - Complete Eulerian-mean tracer equation for coarse resolution OGCMs
JA  - Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn.
JO  - Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics
VL  - 100
SP  - 197
EP  - 214
DO  - 10.1080/03091920600799830
ER  -

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