Ocean Modeling

The ocean is a stratified fluid on a rotating Earth governed by the laws of mechanics and thermodynamics, driven from its upper surface by patterns of momentum and buoyancy fluxes. The ocean contains a wide variety of phenomena on a plethora of space and time scales, ranging from tides, internal gravity waves, large-scale ocean currents and geostrophic turbulence. Modeling the ocean is a formidable challenge; it is a turbulent fluid containing energetically active scales ranging from the global down to order 1 to 10km horizontally and some tens of meters vertically. Important scale interactions occur over the entire spectrum. The ocean also interacts with the cryosphere (land and sea-ice) and harbors life which plays a central role in biogeochemical cycles.

Researches in the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate (PAOC) is driving forward modeling of the ocean both in its physical (water and ice) and biogeochemical aspects. To this end, much effort is being devoted to developing:

(*) algorithms that seamlessly range from convective (non-hydrostatic) scales to balanced (hydrostatic) motions of planetary scale
(*) inverse methodologies and code that interface models with observations
(*) biogeochemical and self-assembling ecosystem models that incorporate aspects of natural selection
(* novel approaches to coupled modeling employing atmosphere/ocean isomorphisms to render models of both fluids from a single hydrodynamical kernel.