NUMERICAL MODELLING OF THE QUASI-GLOBAL OCEAN CIRCULATION BASED ON POM

A free surface quasi-global ocean circulation model, Princeton Ocean Model (POM), was adopted to simulate the climatological circulation. The horizontal resolution of the model was 1/2 degrees X 1/2 degrees with 16 vertical sigma layers. The initial temperature and salinity fields of the model were interpolated from the Levitus data, and the COADS(Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) monthly mean SST and wind fields were used as the surface forcing. The integral time length is 6a. The main general circulation components such as the equatorial current, the equatorial undercurrent, the south and north equatorial currents, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the Kuroshio and the Gulf Stream were well reconstructed. The volume transports of PN section and ACC agree well with the estimations on field survey. Up to now there is no global or quasi-global circulation model results using POM in literature. Our results demonstrate that POM has sound ability to simulate the coastal circulation as well as the general ocean circulation. And this result can provide open boundary conditions for fine resolution regional ocean circulation models.