The Miami Isopycnal Coordinate Ocean Model (MICOM) is adopted to simulate the intevdecadal variability in the Pacific Ocean with most emphasis on regime shifts in the North Pacific. The computational domain covers 60&...The Miami Isopycnal Coordinate Ocean Model (MICOM) is adopted to simulate the intevdecadal variability in the Pacific Ocean with most emphasis on regime shifts in the North Pacific. The computational domain covers 60°N to 40°S with an enclosed boundary condition for momentum flux, whereas there are thermohalirie fluxes across the southern end as a restoring term. In addition, sea surface salinity of the model relaxes to the climatological season cycle, which results in climatological fresh water fluxes. Surface forcing functions from January 1945 through December 1998 are derived from the Comprehensive Ocean and Atmospheric Data Set (COADS). Such a numerical experiment reproduces the observed evolution of the interdecadal variability in the heat content over the upper 400-m layer by a two-year lag. Subduction that occurs at the ventilated thermocline in the central North Pacific is also been simulated and the subducted signals propagate from 35°N to 25°N, taking about 8 to 10 years, in agreement with the expendable Bathy Thermograph observation over recent decades. Interdecadal signals take a southwest-ward and downward path rather than westward propagation, meaning they are less associated with the baroclinic planetary waves. During travel, the signals appear to conserve potential vorticity. Therefore, the ventilated thermocline and related subduction are probably the fundamental physics for interdecadal variability in the mid-latitude subtropics of the North Pacific.展开更多
基金supported by the IARC-Frontier Research System for Global Changethe National Natural Science Foundation of China(40136010)the Chinese Academy of Sciences(KZCX2-205 and KZCX2-203).
文摘The Miami Isopycnal Coordinate Ocean Model (MICOM) is adopted to simulate the intevdecadal variability in the Pacific Ocean with most emphasis on regime shifts in the North Pacific. The computational domain covers 60°N to 40°S with an enclosed boundary condition for momentum flux, whereas there are thermohalirie fluxes across the southern end as a restoring term. In addition, sea surface salinity of the model relaxes to the climatological season cycle, which results in climatological fresh water fluxes. Surface forcing functions from January 1945 through December 1998 are derived from the Comprehensive Ocean and Atmospheric Data Set (COADS). Such a numerical experiment reproduces the observed evolution of the interdecadal variability in the heat content over the upper 400-m layer by a two-year lag. Subduction that occurs at the ventilated thermocline in the central North Pacific is also been simulated and the subducted signals propagate from 35°N to 25°N, taking about 8 to 10 years, in agreement with the expendable Bathy Thermograph observation over recent decades. Interdecadal signals take a southwest-ward and downward path rather than westward propagation, meaning they are less associated with the baroclinic planetary waves. During travel, the signals appear to conserve potential vorticity. Therefore, the ventilated thermocline and related subduction are probably the fundamental physics for interdecadal variability in the mid-latitude subtropics of the North Pacific.
