A Quasi-Global ROMS: Preliminar Results of a Climate Run

Guillermo Auad and Art Miller
Scripps Institute of Oceanography

A quasi global (80S-80N) ROMS grid has been developed with a horizontal resolution of 0.8 degrees zonally and 0.3 to 0.5 degrees meridionally. Twenty levels are included in the vertical, while the climatological forcing was estimated from 40 years of NCEP wind stesses and surface heat fluxes. The first results show a reasonable representation of most world ocean currents and temperatures at the surface (e.g., Gulf Stream, Kuroshio Extension, Loop Current, Malvinas-Brazil Confluence, East Greenland current, ACC, Benguela-Agulhas System, etc) and of currents and temperatures at depth (e.g., Equatorial Counter-Current). The simulation also reproduces the main features of tropical-instability waves and the
geographical location and properties of the North Pacific Intermediate Water, a water-mass which depth ranges between 300m and 1000m.