Coastal Ocean-Atmospheric Coupled System (COACS) for the South China Sea (SCS)-a Modeling Component of the International South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX)

摘要

The main goal is to establish a nowcast system for regional seas, including the South China Sea. This system will have the capability of diagnosing three dimensional velocity, temperature, and salinity fields from satellite and sparse in-situ observations. This system will be easily embedded into the prediction system (e.g., Princeton Ocean Model). The combined nowcast/forecast system will greatly enhance existing operational capability. This is a three-year proposal for extending the current NOMP research project (the South China Sea prediction system) to a coastal air-ocean coupled prediction system and for participating in the international South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX) during 1998-2002 as a modeling component. Under the current sponsorship we have developed: an optimization scheme for determining open boundary conditions, high-order difference schemes for reducing sigma coordinate error at abrupt topography, a statistical model for determining thermohaline variability, and a parametric model for obtaining physical characteristics (SST, mixed layer depth, thermocline depth, thermocline strength, ...) from vertical profiles. We propose to incorporate these new techniques into the South China Sea prediction system (POM) and to expand our modeling effort into a coastal air-ocean coupled model.