Coupled ocean-atmosphere forecasting at short and medium time scales

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2017. This article is posted here by permission of Sears Foundation for Marine Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Marine Research 75 (2017): 877-921, doi:10.1357/002224017823523991.Recent technological advances over the past few decades have enabled the development of fully coupled atmosphere-ocean modeling prediction systems that are used today to support short-term (days to weeks) and medium-term (10–21 days) needs for both the operational and research communities. We overview the coupling framework, including model components and grid resolution considerations, as well as the coupling physics by examining heat fluxes between atmosphere and ocean, momentum transfer, and freshwater fluxes. These modeling systems can be run as fully coupled atmosphere-ocean and atmosphere-ocean-wave configurations. Examples of several modeling systems applied to complex coastal regions including Madeira Island, Adriatic Sea, Coastal California, Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, and the Maritime Continent are presented. In many of these studies, a variety of field campaigns have contributed to a better understanding of the underlying physics associated with the atmosphere-ocean feedbacks. Examples of improvements in predictive skill when run in coupled mode versus standalone are shown. Coupled model challenges such as model initialization, data assimilation, and earth system prediction are discussed.JP acknowledges support from Office of Naval Research (ONR) grant N00014- 10-1-0300. RAA and TAS were supported through the 6.2 NRL Core Project “Coupled Ocean–Wave Prediction System” Program Element #0602435N. HS acknowledges support from ONR (N00014- 15-1-2588), NSF (OCE-f 419235), andNOAA(NA15OAR4310176). AJMwas supported by the NSF Earth System Modeling Program (OCE1419306) and the NOAA Climate Variability and Prediction Program (NA14OAR4310276). LPP is supported by CNPq’s fellowships on scientific productivity (CNPq 304009/2016-4). JA and RC were financially supported by the Oceanic Observatory of Madeira Project (M1420-01-0145-FEDER-000001-Observatório Oceânico da Madeira-OOM)