A 1/8° coupled biochemical-physical Indian Ocean Regional Model: Physical results and validation

Abstract

A coupled physical-biochemical Indian Ocean Regional Model (IORM), based on the Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) and the Carbon Silicate Nitrogen Ecosystem (CoSiNE) model was configured with the primary objective of providing an accurate estimate of the oceanic physical state along with the biochemical processes simulated by CoSiNE to understand the variability in the Indian Ocean (IO). The model did not assimilate any data; instead, weak relaxation of temperature and salinity was implemented to keep the model stable in the long-term simulations. In this study, the skill of the IORM in simulating physical states in the IO was evaluated. Basin-scale surface circulation and cross-sectional transports were compared to observations, which demonstrated that the model replicated most of the observed features with reasonably good accuracy. Consistency and biases in the upper ocean temperature, salinity, and mixed layer depth were also analyzed. Lastly, the seasonality in the IO, its response to monsoonal forcing, and the evolution and dynamics of surface and subsurface dipole events were examined. The IORM reproduced most of the dynamic features including Ekman pumping, wave propagation, and climate variability at both annual and interannual time scales. The internal ocean dynamics and behavior of the modeled sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) suggest a coupled ocean/atmosphere instability that will require further research, including sensitivity experiments to realize improvements in model parameterization.