An OGCM, LICOM2.0, was used to investigate the effects of different surface boundary conditions for sea surface salinity (SSS) on simulations of global mean salinity, SSS, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Cir...An OGCM, LICOM2.0, was used to investigate the effects of different surface boundary conditions for sea surface salinity (SSS) on simulations of global mean salinity, SSS, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Four numerical experiments (CTRL, Expl, Exp2 and Exp3) were designed with the same forcing data-set, CORE.v2, and different surface boundary conditions for SSS~ A new surface salinity boundary condition that consists of both virtual and real salt fluxes was adopted in the fourth experiment (Exp3). Compared with the other experiments, the new salinity boundary condition prohibited a monotonous increasing or decreasing global mean salinity trend. As a result, global salinity was approximately conserved in EXP3. In the default salinity boundary condition setting in LICOM2.0, a weak restoring salinity term plays an essential role in reducing the simulated SSS bias, tending to increase the global mean salinity. However, a strong restoring salinity term under the sea ice can reduce the global mean salinity. The authors also found that adopting simulated SSS in the virtual salt flux instead of constant reference salinity improved the simulation of AMOC, whose strength became closer to that observed.展开更多
基金partially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China[grant number 2013CB956204]the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences[grant number XDA11010403],[grant number XDA11010304]the National Natural Science Foundation of China[grant number 41305028]
文摘An OGCM, LICOM2.0, was used to investigate the effects of different surface boundary conditions for sea surface salinity (SSS) on simulations of global mean salinity, SSS, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Four numerical experiments (CTRL, Expl, Exp2 and Exp3) were designed with the same forcing data-set, CORE.v2, and different surface boundary conditions for SSS~ A new surface salinity boundary condition that consists of both virtual and real salt fluxes was adopted in the fourth experiment (Exp3). Compared with the other experiments, the new salinity boundary condition prohibited a monotonous increasing or decreasing global mean salinity trend. As a result, global salinity was approximately conserved in EXP3. In the default salinity boundary condition setting in LICOM2.0, a weak restoring salinity term plays an essential role in reducing the simulated SSS bias, tending to increase the global mean salinity. However, a strong restoring salinity term under the sea ice can reduce the global mean salinity. The authors also found that adopting simulated SSS in the virtual salt flux instead of constant reference salinity improved the simulation of AMOC, whose strength became closer to that observed.