Xuehong Zhang

The Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System Model, Grid-point Version 2：FGOALS-g2

This study mainly introduces the development of the Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System Model: Grid-point Version 2 (FGOALS-g2) and the preliminary evaluations of its performances based on results from the pre-industrial control run and four members of historical runs according to the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) experiment design. The results suggest that many obvious improvements have been achieved by the FGOALS-g2 compared with the previous version,FGOALS-g1, including its climatological mean states, climate variability, and 20th century surface temperature evolution. For example,FGOALS-g2 better simulates the frequency of tropical land precipitation, East Asian Monsoon precipitation and its seasonal cycle, MJO and ENSO, which are closely related to the updated cumulus parameterization scheme, as well as the alleviation of uncertainties in some key parameters in shallow and deep convection schemes, cloud fraction, cloud macro/microphysical processes and the boundary layer scheme in its atmospheric model. The annual cycle of sea surface temperature along the equator in the Pacific is significantly improved in the new version. The sea ice salinity simulation is one of the unique characteristics of FGOALS-g2, although it is somehow inconsistent with empirical observations in the Antarctic.

The baseline evaluation of LASG/IAP climate system ocean model (LICOM) version 2

The baseline performance of the latest version (version 2) of an intermediate resolution, stand-alone climate oceanic general circulation model, called LASG/IAP (State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics/Institute of Atmospheric Physics) Climate system Ocean Model (LICOM), has been evaluated against the observation by using the main metrics from Griffies et al. in 2009. In general, the errors of LICOM2 in the water properties and in the circulation are comparable with the models of Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments (COREs). Some common biases are still evident in the present version, such as the cold bias in the eastern Pacific cold tongue, the warm biases off the east coast of the basins, the weak poleward heat transport in the Atlantic, and the relatively large biases in the Arctic Ocean. A unique systematic bias occurs in LICOM2 over the Southern Ocean, compared with CORE models. It seems that this bias may be related to the sea ice process around the Antarctic continent.

Fundamental framework and experiments of the third generation of IAP / LASG world ocean general circulation model

A new generation of the IAP / LASG world ocean general circulation model is designed and presented based on the previous 20-layer model, with enhanced spatial resolutions and improved parameterizations. The model uses a triangular-truncated spectral horizontal grid system with its zonal wave number of 63 (T63) to match its atmospheric counterpart of a T63 spectral atmosphere general circulation model in a planned coupled ocean-atmosphere system. There are 30 layers in vertical direction, of which 20 layers are located above 1000 m for better depicting the permanent thermocline. As previous ocean models developed in IAP / LASG, a free surface (rather than “rigid-lid” approximation) is included in this model. Compared with the 20-layer model, some more detailed physical parameterizations are considered, including the along / cross isopycnal mixing scheme adapted from the Gent-MacWilliams scheme.The model is spun up from a motionless state. Initial conditions for temperature and salinity are taken from the three-dimensional distributions of Levitus’ annual mean observation. A preliminary analysis of the first 1000-year integration of a control experiment shows some encouraging improvements compared with the twenty-layer model, particularly in the simulations of permanent thermocline, thermohaline circulation, meridional heat transport, etc. resulted mainly from using the isopycnal mixing scheme. However, the use of isopycnal mixing scheme does not significantly improve the simulated equatorial thermocline. A series of numerical experiments show that the most important contribution to the improvement of equatorial thermocline and the associated equatorial under current comes from reducing horizontal viscosity in the equatorial regions. It is found that reducing the horizontal viscosity in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean may slightly weaken the overturning rate of North Atlantic Deep Water.

Weak response of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation to an increase of atmospheric car- bon dioxide in IAP/LASG Climate System Model

Response of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) to global warming is examined by using the climate system model developed at IAP/LASG The evidence indicates that the gradually warming climate associated with the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to a warmer and fresher sea surface water at the high latitudes of the North Atlantic Ocean, which prevents the down-welling of the surface water. The succedent reduction of the pole-toequator meridional potential density gradient finally results in the decrease of the THC in intensity. When the atmospheric carbon dioxide is doubled, the maximum value of the Atlantic THC decreases approximately by 8%. The associated poleward oceanic heat transport also becomes weaker. This kind of THC weakening centralizes mainly in the northern part of the North Atlantic basin, indicating briefly a local scale adjustment rather than a loop oscillation with the whole Atlantic “conveyor belt” decelerating.

The relationship between the thermohaline circulation and climate variability

The long-term integration with the Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model of the State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), Institute of Atmospheric Physics(IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences has been used in the investigations on the relationship between the thermohaline circulation and climate variability. The results show that the strength of the North Atlantic Thermohaline circulation (THC) is negatively correlated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Based on this kind of relationship, and also the instrument-measured climate record such as air pressure and sea surface temperature, the activity of the thermohaline circulation during the 20th century has been evaluated. The inferred variations of the strength of the THC is that, during two multi-decadal periods of 1867–1903 and 1934–1972, the THC is estimated to have been running stronger, whereas during the two periods of 1904–1933 and 1973–1994, it appears to have been weaker.

The coupling procedure of air- sea freshwater exchange in climate system models

A coupling procedure of air-sea freshwater exchange in climate system models is reported in this note. The first stage of the procedure is to force OGCM to equilibrium under strong restoring surface condition on salinity, then increase the relaxing coefficient and get another steady state. The second stage is to switch the forcing on salinity from the weak restoring condition to the flux condition, and then finish a long-term spinning-up integration. After finishing these OGCM spinning-up stages, the last stage is to couple the OGCM with an active atmosphere, i.e. AGCM. Verification with the Global-Ocean-Atmosphere-Land-System model developed at the State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG) shows that the preferred procedure is successful in including the air-sea freshwater exchange process.

LASG/IAP Climate System Ocean Model Version 2: LICOM2

The present study compares Sea Surface Temperature (SST), zonal mean temperature, and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) determined using an ocean general circulation model, which is developed in State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), its previous version, and two climate system models using it as the oceanic components. In particular, the differences between the two versions of ocean models and between uncoupled and coupled models are discussed.