[MITgcm-support] questions re computation of meridional heat flux

[Patrick Heimbach]

Jean-Michel, Dimitris,

for a complete picture you'd also want to diagnose
the "diffusive" fluxes that the model computes,
and which can be significant fractions of the advective
fluxes in certain regions, wouldn'd you.
To get these, activate the fields "DIFy_TH" of the
diagnostics package (as for the ADVy_TH, these already
have the right volumetric factors).

-Patrick



Quoting Jean-Michel Campin <jmc at ocean.mit.edu>:

> Hi Dimitri,
>
> With non-Linear Free surface (either using z or z* coordinate),
> the accurate way to get the integrated heat flux requires to
> use VTHMASS (that already contains the hFacS), and then to
> multiply by dxG & delR (with no ETAN).
> An other possibility (that I recommand if you are not using
> the default 2nd order, centered advection scheme) is to use
> directly the diagnostic of advective flux that the model compute,
> (already multiplied by dxG, delR and hFacS, units: degC.m^3/s)
> which is "ADVy_TH"
>
> Cheers,
> Jean-Michel
>
> On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 04:03:57PM -0700, Dimitris Menemenlis wrote:
>> Jean-Michel, what is most accurate way to compute heat flux across lines of
>> latitude with rStar turned on?  Should I use VVELTH or VTHMASS?  And if I
>> use the latter, what vertical thickness is most appropriate at the surface:
>> "delR(1)" or "delR(1)+ETAN"?
>>
>> Dimitris
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Patrick Heimbach   Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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