[MITgcm-support] Zonal velocity bands

[Neil Swart]

> Hi MITgcmer's,
> 
> I am trying to establish a setup derived from the tutorial_baroclinic_gyre example - the differences being I have 10 vertical levels, and the domain spans 10-70S, 0-40E.
> 
> With a zonal wind-stress from the example - specified as: tau=tauMax*sin(pi*Y); I get something that I think is reasonable after the first few steps (output is weekly).
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> 
> 
> If I alter the windstress slightly, to: tau=tauMax*sin(1.2*pi*Y); a bunch of alternating zonal 'jets' appear. These strike me a being unrealistic and the symptom of some problem. They persist, and even intensify if I integrate out to a later time.
> 
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> 
> 
> If I toy around with the wind-field, I can get this behaviour to come or go, seemingly depending on how symmetrical the forcing is. Can anyone please help me out with what might be going wrong? I'm ultimately trying to implement a
> zonally homogeneous windstress derived from the Trenberth climatology (doing so produces the same problem). 
> 
> Thanks for your help!

> Neil
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Neil Swart
> 
> Climate Modelling Group
> School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC
> Canada
> 
> http://climate.uvic.ca/
> 
> 
>