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Subproject 2
INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF SURFACE FLUXES AND
OCEAN HEAT STORAGE
Objectives
- To determine
suitable parameterisations of surface fluxes of heat, momentum and
water vapour over the Nordic Seas and the Arctic Ocean.
- To compute a
climatology of the surface fluxes based on available in situ and remote
sensing data.
- To estimate
interannual variability of surface heat exchange during the past 50
years and investigate links to available data describing the state of
the atmosphere, ice and ocean during the same period.
Summary
Observation based estimates of state variables in different
compartments of the global climate system and of fluxes between them,
are required in order to test theoretical ideas about how the coupled
system is working and ultimately how it might respond to changes in
forcing. This project aims to provide one piece of the puzzle
describing global climate mean state and variability, namely air-sea
interaction in the Arctic Mediterranean comprising the Nordic Seas and
the Arctic Ocean. In this area strong gradients in surface conditions
and surface heat exchanges exist between the Atlantic influence
primarily in the southeast and Arctic influence in the northwest. Data
sets for ocean temperature (heat content), ice extent and
concentration, and various atmospheric parameters are available and
have already been used in studies describing the mean and time varying
state of each compartment during the past century, primarily the last
50 years. Here we will argue that it is now timely and fruitful to
focus on quantification of air-sea heat flux, that the resulting
estimates will be able to shed light on mechanisms behind variability
in the atmosphere and oceans, and that the proposed project will
provide a basis for investigations of seasonal to interannual
predictability of the coupled system. The main focus is on heat
exchange but the concurrent air-sea momentum flux (wind stress) and
water vapour flux (evaporation and precipitation) will also be
addressed.
In this subproject, we propose to engage a doctoral student for the
following activities:
- Review and characterisation of flux parameterisation
methods.
- Collocation, intercomparison and evaluation of data
sets and parameterisations.
- Testing and identification or ranking of best
possible climatologies
- Production of fields for seasonal, interannual and
decadal variabilities
- Comparison to time series observations and
extrapolation with selected parameterisations
The following data sets will be used within the subproject:
- Satellite derived sea-surface temperature (SST) data,
updated from da Silva et al. (1994) and available from http://ingrid.ldgo.columbia.edu/
- GODAE high resolution SST pilot project (http://www.ghrsst-pp.org)
- The Hamburg Ocean-Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes
from Satellite from 1987-1997 (Jost et al., 2002), available from http://www.hoaps.zmaw.de/
- The satellite fields provided by the Eumetsat Ocean
and Sea Ice Application Facility (OSI-SAF) containing sea ice, incoming
shortwave radiation, SST, and wind field data (http://www.osi-saf.org).
- The IFREMER collocation data fields from 1990
available from http://www.ifremer.fr
- Hydrographical data set for the Nordic Seas provided
by the Marine Research Institute, Iceland, the Institute of Marine
Research, Norway, the Faeroese Fisheries Laboratory, and the Arctic and
Antarctic Research Institute, Russia, through the NISE project
- Data from more than 20 Argo floats in the
Norwegian-Greenland Sea (http://www.coriolis.eu.org).
- Numerical model results (from subproject 1
and from the modelling community in Bergen through Helge Drange, NERSC).
Funding is available for the Ph.D. student on the appropriate Norwegian
salary scale for Ph.D. stipends. Although the stipend has not yet
been formally advertised, informal inquiries may be made to the
Scientific Coordinator Dr. Alastair D. Jenkins <alastair.jenkins@gfi.uib.no>.
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Web page maintained by Alastair D. Jenkins <alastair.jenkins@gfi.uib.no>
© GFI
2006-09-28 |
