Oceanographers' contribution to climate modelling and prediction: progress to date and a future perspective

by Emily F. Shuckburgh

Philosophical Transactions AVolume 370(1980):5656-5681

December 13, 2012

©2012 by The Royal Society

Solid lines are multi-model global averages of surface warming (relative to 1980–1999) for the scenarios A2, A1B and B1, shown as continuations of the twentieth century simulations.

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

Zonal mean (a) temperature and (b) salinity as simulated in a 30-year integration of an early coupled atmosphere–ocean model with an ocean resolution of 5° latitude–longitude and four

layers [14], together with observations (c,d) from Levitus [15].

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

Annual mean, zonally averaged SST error, simulated minus observed climatology.

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

Time-mean observed potential temperature (°C), zonally averaged over all ocean basins (labelled contours) and multi-model mean error in this field, simulated minus observed (colour-filled

contours).

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

The tilting of the jets is associated with the changes in the PV structure caused by the introduction of a zonal gradient in bottom slope, hx, to a quasi-geostrophic barotropic system.

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

Effective diffusivity in m2 s−1 calculated from a passive tracer advected using velocity fields [102] from the Southern Ocean State Estimate.

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

Water-mass structure (see [113] for more details) superimposed on the zonal mean potential temperature structure (1976–2006) for CMIP5 models and observations [114] (bottom right panel).

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

1976–2006 average of September MLD (see [115] for more details) along the Southern Ocean circumpolar belt, following the maximum MLD at each longitude for each CMIP5 model (red) and

in observations [116] (black).

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

Diagnosed absolute vorticity with contours of streamfunction for barotropic flow past a cylinder on a beta-plane simulated using Fluidity-ICOM, an unstructured mesh finite element model [124–

[126]: (a) low boundary mesh resolution simulation presenting a tw...

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society

An idealized model of the northern North Atlantic and Nordic seas.

Emily F. Shuckburgh Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2012;370:5656-5681

©2012 by The Royal Society