Idealised aquaplanet setup: Uniform slab ocean depth, no q-fluxes

[michael_byrne@erdw_ethz_ch]

Hello! This is a re-posting from the "General Discussion" forum -- I think "Simpler Model Configurations" is a better place for it! For those of us interested in more idealised modelling, it would be great for this part of the forum to be more active... Get posting! My question is this: I recently started using CESM 1.2.2 and would like to run an aquaplanet simulation with a slab ocean of uniform depth and no q-fluxes. It seems that the compsets using a slab ocean use layer depths and q-fluxes derived from observations as default. Does anybody know how to use a slab with uniform depth and no q-fluxes? Cheers, Mike

 

[brianpm]

Mike,The short answer:Both the depth and q-flux are specified as boundary conditions in netCDF files. So you can just take those files and modify the values within them to specify a uniform depth and whatever qflux you like. The longer answer in short form:There are a few gotchas along the way. You need to deal with the sea-ice model in some way (easiest way is to disallow sea ice). You should make sure to run the ocean on the same grid as the atmosphere, rather than the funny displaced pole ocean grid. If you are using CAM5 as the atmosphere, the compset will default to incorrect aerosol emissions. I have done some preliminary work on this configuration, and I can share some notes with you if you want. Let me know.