[MITgcm-devel] conservative temperature

[Jean-Michel Campin]

Hi,

I had a quick look at the TEOS document (2010 Thermodynamics
Equation of Seawater), and seems that the temperature
we have in MITgcm, that is called potential temperature,
should be renamed to "Conservative Temperature":
As I understand, if Cp was strictly constant it would be the same, 
but for seawater Cp varies a little bit with salinity (and with
pressure, but does this one contribute ?).
And since MITgcm assumes a constant Cp, the "Conservative Temperature"
(= big THETA = Potential_Enthalpy / Cp0, with Cp0 = constant)
seems to fit better with the MITgcm temperature.
Now, it's likely that it does not make big differences
(and probably much less that Boussinesq related assumption).
And what about the various EOS we have (potential temp or
conservative temp) ?

Cheers,
Jean-Michel