Wallcraft Alan J.

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Wallcraft
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Alan J.
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  • Article
    Spectral decomposition of internal gravity wave sea surface height in global models
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2017-10-10) Savage, Anna C. ; Arbic, Brian K. ; Alford, Matthew H. ; Ansong, Joseph ; Farrar, J. Thomas ; Menemenlis, Dimitris ; O’Rourke, Amanda K. ; Richman, James G. ; Shriver, Jay F. ; Voet, Gunnar ; Wallcraft, Alan J. ; Zamudio, Luis
    Two global ocean models ranging in horizontal resolution from 1/12° to 1/48° are used to study the space and time scales of sea surface height (SSH) signals associated with internal gravity waves (IGWs). Frequency-horizontal wavenumber SSH spectral densities are computed over seven regions of the world ocean from two simulations of the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) and three simulations of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model (MITgcm). High wavenumber, high-frequency SSH variance follows the predicted IGW linear dispersion curves. The realism of high-frequency motions (>0:87 cpd) in the models is tested through comparison of the frequency spectral density of dynamic height variance computed from the highest-resolution runs of each model (1/25° HYCOM and 1/48° MITgcm) with dynamic height variance frequency spectral density computed from nine in situ profiling instruments. These high-frequency motions are of particular interest because of their contributions to the small-scale SSH variability that will be observed on a global scale in the upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite altimetry mission. The variance at supertidal frequencies can be comparable to the tidal and low-frequency variance for high wavenumbers (length scales smaller than ∼50 km), especially in the higher-resolution simulations. In the highest-resolution simulations, the high-frequency variance can be greater than the low-frequency variance at these scales.
  • Article
    Frequency content of sea surface height variability from internal gravity waves to mesoscale eddies
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2017-03-28) Savage, Anna C. ; Arbic, Brian K. ; Richman, James G. ; Shriver, Jay F. ; Alford, Matthew H. ; Buijsman, Maarten C. ; Farrar, J. Thomas ; Sharma, Hari ; Voet, Gunnar ; Wallcraft, Alan J. ; Zamudio, Luis
    High horizontal-resolution (1=12:5° and 1=25°) 41-layer global simulations of the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM), forced by both atmospheric fields and the astronomical tidal potential, are used to construct global maps of sea surface height (SSH) variability. The HYCOM output is separated into steric and nonsteric and into subtidal, diurnal, semidiurnal, and supertidal frequency bands. The model SSH output is compared to two data sets that offer some geographical coverage and that also cover a wide range of frequencies—a set of 351 tide gauges that measure full SSH and a set of 14 in situ vertical profilers from which steric SSH can be calculated. Three of the global maps are of interest in planning for the upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) two-dimensional swath altimeter mission: (1) maps of the total and (2) nonstationary internal tidal signal (the latter calculated after removing the stationary internal tidal signal via harmonic analysis), with an average variance of 1:05 and 0:43 cm2, respectively, for the semidiurnal band, and (3) a map of the steric supertidal contributions, which are dominated by the internal gravity wave continuum, with an average variance of 0:15 cm2. Stationary internal tides (which are predictable), nonstationary internal tides (which will be harder to predict), and nontidal internal gravity waves (which will be very difficult to predict) may all be important sources of high-frequency ‘‘noise’’ that could mask lower frequency phenomena in SSH measurements made by the SWOT mission.
  • Article
    Arctic ice-ocean interactions in an 8-to-2 kilometer resolution global model
    (Elsevier, 2023-06-12) Fine, Elizabeth C. ; McClean, Julie L. ; Ivanova, Detelina P. ; Craig, Anthony P. ; Wallcraft, Alan J. ; Chassignet, Eric P. ; Hunke, Elizabeth C.
    In the last decades, the Arctic climate has changed dramatically, with the loss of multiyear sea ice one of the clearest consequences. These changes have occurred on relatively rapid timescales, and both accurate short-term Arctic prediction (e.g., 10 days to three months) and climate projection of future Arctic scenarios present ongoing challenges. Here we describe a representation of the Arctic ocean and sea ice in a ultrahigh resolution simulation in which the horizontal grid mesh reduces from 8 km at the equator to 2 km at the poles (UH8to2) for the years 2017–2020. We find the simulation reproduces observed distributions of seasonal sea-ice thickness and concentration realistically, although concentration is biased low in the spring and summer and low biases in thickness are found in the central and eastern basins in the fall. Volume, fresh water, and heat transports through key passages are realistic, lying within observationally determined ranges. Climatological comparisons reveal that the UH8to2 Atlantic Water is shallower, warmer, and saltier than the World Ocean Atlas 2018 climatology for 2005–2017 in the eastern basin. Our analysis suggests that these biases, combined with a lack of stratification in the upper 100 m of the simulated ocean, contribute to the winter biases in modeled sea ice thickness. This relationship between biases in the sea ice and ocean points to a potential positive feedback within the model, illuminating challenges for long term model predictive power in a changing Arctic climate.