Climatic effects of mesoscale ocean–atmosphere interaction in an idealized coupled model.

Evidence is mounting that vigorous intrinsic variability associated with mesoscale oceanic features (with spatial scales on the order of 10–100 km) contributes significantly to large-scale low-frequency climate variability, with fundamental implications for near-term (~decadal) climate prediction. As of yet, extensive simulation of these decadal effects using high-resolution state-of-the-art coupled climate models has been computationally prohibitive, as it may require mesoscale-resolving atmospheric components. In this work, we study the effects of mesoscale air–sea coupling on large-scale low-frequency (interannual-to-decadal+) climate variability using the Quasi-Geostrophic Coupled Model (Q-GCM), in which the dynamical (QG) oceanic and atmospheric modules are coupled via interactive ageostrophic oceanic and atmospheric mixed layers. The key feature of this ageostrophic air–sea coupling is a temperature-dependent wind-stress, which permits effective transmission of the ocean induced sea-surface temperature anomalies to the free atmosphere. We perform multi-century Q-GCM simulations over a range of atmospheric and oceanic resolutions to identify parameter regimes of enhanced multi-scale ocean–atmosphere interaction and analyze their dynamics. This work was supported by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Reseach Growth Initiative (UWM RGI 2018), as well as by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science (project 14.W03.31.0006). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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