Overturning Sensitivity in an Eddying Ocean Model

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Overturning Sensitivity in an Eddying Ocean Model

A snapshot relative vorticity (in colors) and pressure (relief) at 100 m depth in a simulation with realistic, though idealized, forcing. The color range spans =B15e-4 s^{-1}. The domain is a simple "notched box" ocean with vertical walls and periodic channel in the southernmost 1200 km.
Work by Christopher Wolfe and Paola Cessi at UCSD, in which they investigate the equilibrium response of an eddy-resolving version of MITgcm to variations in the external parameters of diffusivity, wind forcing and geometry, with particular attention to the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) and deep stratification…

Planet-in-a-Bottle

Figure 1. The components of the system: The laboratory observatory consists of a physical system: a rotating table on which a tank, camera and control system for illumination are mounted. The computational part consists of a measurement system for velocimetry, a numerical model (MITgcm), and an assimilation system.
Work by Sai Ravela, John Marshall, Chris Hill, Andrew Wong and Scott Stransky in which they use MITgcm to provide the virtual analogue for a fluid lab experiment in the physical laboratory. This is part of an effort to demonstrate how to achieve real-time model-data synthesis, using measurements from a roboticaly controlled automated sensor system…

Lake Modeling

Figure 1. Summer-time, mean circulation. The plot shows depth integrated current (arrows) overlying column average water temperature (colored). Arrows illustrating vector flow are plotted every 5 grid-points.

Work by Galen McKinley and Val Bennington at the University of Wisconsin, Madison using MITgcm to model the general circulation of Lake Superior as part of a project to develop a quantitative understanding of the role such bodies of water may play in the terrestrial carbon cycle…

Tidal Mixing Over Rough Topography

Snapshot of wave zonal velocity (ms-1) deviation from the barotropic tide in the control simulation. Work by Maxim Nikurshin and Sonya Legg at GFDL using a 2d version of MITgcm to explore radiation and dissipation of the internal tides generated through tidal mixing over rough topography…

Ocean Ecosystems

Figure 1. Illustration of the key components in the self-assembling phytoplankton community model. After some years of interaction, the fittest "types" persist and occupy distinct habitats.Work by Fanny Monteiro with Mick Follows and Stephanie Dutkiewicz at MIT who have been using the MITgcm to probe the behaviour of self-assembling phytoplankton communities within a global ocean circulation…

ConGRADulations!

Congratulations to MITgcm’s two newest doctoral graduates:Fanny Monteiro and Maxim Nikurashin.

Sea Ice

Figure 1. Arctic and Antarctic results from an eddy-permitting, MITgcm, global ocean and sea-ice simulation: Sea ice thickness distribution (color, in meters) averaged over the years 1992-2002. The ice-edge (estimated as the 15% isoline of ice concentration) retrieved from passive microwave satellite data is shown as a white contour for comparison. The top row shows the results for the Arctic Ocean and the bottom row for the Antarctic Oceans; the left column shows distributions for March and the right column for September.Work by Martin Losch of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute, Bremerhaven, Germany, Jean Michel Campin, Patrick Heimbach, Chris Hill (at MIT) and Dimitris Menemenlis (JPL) extending the reach of the MITgcm in to the Polar oceans, with the development of a dynamic-thermodynamic sea-ice model and its adjoint…

PRM

Figure 1. Temperature sections after 60 hours from (top left) the fully resolved model, (bottom left) the multi-scale simulation and (bottom right) the balanced model with a simple convective adjustment algorithm.Work by Jean-Michel Campin, Chris Hill, Helen Jones and John Marshall at MIT using the MITgcm to exploit a multi scale superparameterization approach to increase efficiency in modeling oceanic deep convection (ODC)…

Aqua Planets

Figure 1. With the northern pole in view to the left, the southern pole to the right, sea surface temperature, and sea-ice height from the Double Drake experiment.Using a coupled ocean-atmosphere version of the MITgcm to study an Earth-like planet which is entirely covered by ocean, David Ferreira and John Marshall, are exploring the elemental role of the ocean in climate…

Adjoint Advances

Adjoint Advances story by Helen Hill Two MITgcm adjoint activities are (i) the development of an open-source, extensible automatic differentiation tool, OpenAD and (ii) the configuration of an ~18km resolution global ocean and sea-ice experiment as part of the ECCO2 project.

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