Global, Basin and Shelf Ocean Applications of OPA

An Inter-Agency Canadian Initiative

EC-DFO-DND + Universities + Mercator-OceanCONCEPTS -- Canadian Operational network of Coupled Environmental PredicTion SystemsCore project: to improve forecasting using coupled global atmosphere (GEM)+ocean (OPA) + ice with data assimilation

DFO ocean modelling coordination, new virtual center of excellence COMDA--Center for Ocean Model Development and ApplicationDevelop an ice-ocean modelling capacity for global, basins and shelf oceans; Link to DFO observation programs to derive datasets for model validation

Common DomainsAll grids consistent will be consistent with the

Mercator ORCA025 model

•Global (1º,1/4º)•North Atlantic (1/4º)•NW Atlantic (1/4º)•EAST (1/12º)

•North Pacific (1º,1/4º)•NE Pacific (1/4º, 1/12º)

•Arctic (1º, 1/4º)

46 vertical levels

Lateral Open Boundary Condition

Flather’s condition for barotropic flow normal to the boundary:

Restoring T-S to prescribed values (e.g., taken from large-scale model or observed climatology) within a few grids near the boundary

Turn off advection of T-S within a few grids near the boundary

ghch

cu=u ppnn ,

Shelf Model: Tides

M2 co-amplitude M2 co-phase

Shelf Model: Impacts of Tides on SST

Without tides With tides

Arctic Model: Sea Surface Height

SSH of 10-y Res. (yearly mean)

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Annual mean , year 10

Global Model: Impacts of Tides on SST

Global Model: A Sensitivity Study

Dependency of ice volume and thickness on changes in concentration associated with lead formation

Lateral accretion of ice concentration in leads (Fichefet & Morales Maqueda 1997):

0

)1(

hL

BAA=

t

A

i

l

acc

Sea Ice Volume

Ice Thickness and Extent

MarchSeptember

February September

Plans (DFO and Partners) Shelf models: 1/12-deg resolution NW Atlantic; operational (e.g. C-NOOFS); ecosystem Basin models:1/4-deg resolution for N Atlantic, N Pacific and Arctic; data assimilation; CICE-OPA coupling; CICE-LIM inter-comparison; validation Global model: “ORCA1”: assess model drift for longer (~50 year) run; test sensitivity to surface forcing; introduce inter-annually varying forcing; validationORCA025Couple OPA to NWP model (GEM)