A multi-level adaptation model of circulation for the western Indian Ocean

Abstract

A three-dimensional, fully non-linear semi-diagnostic (adaptation) model is described. This model is used to compute the climatological mean circulation and to understand the role of local, steady forcing of the wind and thermohaline forcing on the observed circulation in the western tropical Indian Ocean. The model consists of equations of motion and continuity, sea surface topography, equations of state and temperature, and salinity diffusion equations. While the sea surface topography equation is solved by a successive overrelaxation technique, the other model equations are solved by a leap-frog numerical scheme. Two versions of the model, having 18 and 33 levels in the vertical direction, were prepared to study climatological mean circulation in the western tropical Indian Ocean. The first numerical experiment is carried out with the 18-level adaptation model to study the sensitivity of the solution to different values of eddy coefficients. The main scientific rationale behind these numerical experiments was to obtain the most appropriate values of the eddy coefficients for the realistic computation of climatological circulation in the western tropical Indian Ocean. Three numerical experiments were conducted for the month of February to understand the sensitivity of the model solution to different eddy coefficients. The model reproduced the circulation features during February, even with low values of horizontal and vertical eddy coefficients. In the second experiment, the adaptation model, with 33 levels in the vertical direction, is applied to study the seasonal mean climatological circulation at selected depths during Spring in the western tropical Indian Ocean. Adapted (steady state) results of currents, sea surface topography, temperature and salinity anomaly fields are presented. Reasonable agreement is obtained between the model results on currents and the observational data. The computed anomaly fields for temperature and salinity at selected depths during Spring show that the observed temperature and salinity data were adapted with surface wind, flow field and bottom relief of the ocean and that the observed data were found to be fully smoothed during the adaptation stage. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.