Cooling of Aquaplanet slab ocean model

[Sreerag]

Hey,
I am running a simulation of QSC6 compset with no qfluxes and 60m mixed layer depth. I found that the global mean TS drops so quickly and attain 0.5(approx) degrees celsius at 30 years run. I am not using an active sea ice also. Is there is any initialisation for sea ice is causing the error? I believe without sea ice the model should run with a more warmer global mean TS. I think there is presence of Ice albedo feedback making this issue. Can anyone comment on it?


Thanks in advance
Sreerag

 

[brianpm]

The QSC6 configuration will have no sea ice by default (the sea ice model is **not** used). With zero q-flux, the polar regions will get very cold (not much insolation). Since there is no sea ice, we allow the slab ocean temperature to go below the freezing point.

If you turn on the thermodynamic sea ice, you will likely end up in a snowball climate with ice extent reaching to pretty low latitudes.

With or without sea ice, I think the way to keep the global mean surface temperature warmer is to provide a q-flux that moves energy poleward.