[MITgcm-support] shelficeForcingS and SHIForcS units ?

[Martin Losch]

Madeline,

it's always possible, that there is a mismatch between real units and  
what is described, but in this case everything seems OK to me:
units of shelficeForcingS should be salinity_units*m/s.
In your case rUnit2mass = rhoConst = 999.8 kg/m^3 (or whatever you  
specified in data), so shelficeForcingS*rUnit2mass should be  
salinity_units*kg/m^2/s. But what are salinity_units (actually there  
are no units anymore, PSU should not be use, ask Michael)? Something  
like g salt per kg water (g/kg) => g/m^2/s. So everything is in order,  
right?

Martin


On Jul 23, 2009, at 1:37 AM, Madeline Miller wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> There is a variable shelficeForcingS calculated in the shelfice pkg,  
> in shelfice_thermodynamics.F.
>
> Using the default BRIOS thermodynamics,
>
>  shelficeForcingS(i,j,bi,bj) =
>      &           ( SHELFICEsaltTransCoeff
>      &           - cFac*shelfIceFreshWaterFlux(I,J,bi,bj)*mass2rUnit )
>      &           * ( saltFreeze - sLoc(I,J) )
>
> From SHELFICE.h and the other computations, it appears that the  
> units of this quantity are (deg C) * (m/s) .
>
> But then, there is a diagnostic SHIForcS which is shelficeForcingS  
> scaled by rUnit2mass, which if I understand correctly converts from  
> m to kg/m^2.
>
> So is SHIForcS then in units of (deg C)*kg/m^2/s?  In the comment it  
> says it should be g/m^2/s. Did I miss a multiplicative factor  
> somewhere?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Madeline
>
>
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