[MITgcm-devel] serious bug in rStar code

[Dimitris Menemenlis]

Jean-Michel, what do you think would be the consequence of the 
rStar/hFac bug?  One thing that I (and others at JPL) have noticed is 
that sea-surface height variability in shallow coastal regions seems a 
bit excessive.  Could the rStar/hFac bug be in part responsible?

Second hypothesis and question regards formulation of bottom drag 
coefficient in shallow regions, specifically of "bottomDragQuadratic". 
If you look at experimental literature for shallow regions, the typical 
value "bottomDragQuadratic=.002" is obtained relative to depth-averaged 
horizotnal velocity.  The way that bottomDragQuadratic is implemented in 
the model, it seems to be relative to bottom level velocity only (i.e., 
mom_calc_ke is applied to uFld and vFld of bottom level).  This would 
give a drag coefficient that depends in a weird way on choice of model 
vertical levels and which in general would tend to be too weak relative 
to experimental values.  Am I missing something?

Dimitris

-- 
Dimitris Menemenlis <menemenlis at jpl.nasa.gov>
Jet Propulsion Lab, California Institute of Technology
MS 300-323, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena CA 91109-8099
tel: 818-354-1656;  fax: 818-393-6720