SST restoring

[marte_maq]

Hi everyone,

I am running Icepack in stand-alone and have a question regarding the name-list parameter ocn_restoring and trestore. It is not clear yet for me what the sst restoring actually does and when it is important to restore the sea surface temperature. Can anyone explain me the importance of this switch? I also see that the restore time scale is 90 days as default. What does a faster or slower restoring mean and how can I choose a adequate restoring time scale for my model set-up? I hope someone can help me understanding this.
Thanks,

Marte

 

[eclare@lanl_gov]

Hello Marte,
The restoring capability just nudges the SST back toward the data values. In stand-alone mode with the slab ocean parameterization turned on, the model calculates SST based on the forcing balance at the sea surface and under the ice; restoring pushes the SST back toward the data values and can completely replace the SST value if that's what is needed. It's important for the sea ice only to the extent that ocean heat affects the sea ice evolution, and so it can either help make more ice or melt it back more, depending on what direction (positive or negative) the calculated bias is. Restoring has a long and colorful history in the ocean modeling community; that's the place to look for further information on how/why it works. Whether you need to use it, and if so, how to set it up will depend a lot on your particular configuration -- the atmospheric and oceanic forcing you use will largely determine the SST bias in the Icepack-calculated value. The restoring time scale determines the strength of the nudging and thus how quickly the SST heads toward the data value (e.g. it can be instantaneous). That said, we do not recommend using either Icepack or CICE in stand-alone mode because many coupled feedbacks are critical. We intend that configuration to be used mainly for software testing.
Best wishes,
Elizabeth

 

[ucas_qs]

Hello, Elizabeth,
Your reply helps me to better understand restoring. Now, I want to conduct SST restore experiment in a certain region in the coupling experiment to verify the interaction of the ocean and atmosphere in the region May I ask if you have some examples for my reference?
Thanks,

Qiushi

 

[eclare@lanl_gov]

Hi Qiushi,
You are forging new territory. I don't have any examples, although there might be some in the literature that I don't know about. Good luck!
e