[A-CG36] Dynamics of Oceanic and Atmospheric Waves, Vortices, and Circulations

[ACG36-P05] Responses of western boundary currents to different wind products in eddy-resolving hindcast ocean simulations

*Hideharu Sasaki¹, Kunio Kutsuwada², Yoshikazu Sasai³ (1.Application Laboratory , Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 2.School of Marine Science and Technology, Tokai University, 3.Research Institute for Global Change , Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology)

Keywords:ocean general circulation model, wind product, western boundary current, heat flux

The outputs from eddy-resolving hindcast global ocean simulations enable us to investigate the various oceanic fields and their variations at intra-seasonal to decadal timescales. The atmospheric data used in the simulation is one of the keys to representing the oceanic fields not only at the surface but also in the subsurface, which is suggested by our previous studies. To contribute to this issue and validate wind products, we are conducting sensitivity experiments forced by different atmospheric wind products using the second version of the Ocean General Circulation Model (OGCM) for the Earth Simulator named OFES2. In this study, we report preliminary results from the two experiments forced by JRA55-do and J-OFURO3 winds from 1991 to 2017. We found significant sea surface temperature (SST) differences organized near the western boundary currents between the two experiments, although the differences of zonal wind and wind curl appear to be small. We also found relatively large differences in the heat flux near the currents, which mostly come from those of the latent heat flux. The SST differences near the currents appear to induce the heat flux differences. Our preliminary results suggest that the simulated western boundary currents are very sensitive to the wind product driving the OGCM, which influences further the heat flux through SST near the currents.