[MITgcm-support] definition of UVEL

[Neil Swart]

Zhaomin,

With various MITgcm setups I have UVEL positive in the ACC region. Integrating the velocities at Drake Passage to get an idea of the ACC transport often gives a decent idea of what is happening - if I do this in a 2 degree MITgcm setup with realistic bathymetry I get on the order of 100 Sv of transport towards the east, which is reasonable compared with observations. 

Ryan, if you are talking about negative ACC velocities or Drake Passage transports in the IPCC GISS-EH model, such as reported in Russell et al (2006), it turns out these were incorrectly reported (as -6 Sv), because of an error in the CMIP3 archive. The actual Drake Passage transport in GISS-EH was 175 Sv (towards the east). Or were you referring to something else?

Neil

---------------------------------------------------
Neil Swart

Climate Modelling Group
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
University of Victoria
Victoria, BC
Canada

http://climate.uvic.ca/

On Apr 1, 2011, at 4:20 PM, Ryan Abernathey wrote:

> Zhaomin,
> 
> The problem is not so serious. Several IPCC models are known to have UVEL negative in the ACC region as well.
> 
> Best,
> Ryan
> 
> On Apr 1, 2011, at 12:31 PM, Wang, Zhaomin wrote:
> 
>> Can somebody let me know if UVEL is defined as total zonal velocity or something else? We found that UVEL is too small or even negative in the ACC regions in our output. If UVEL is total zonal velocity, we need to check if we made a mistake in our run.
>> 
>> Zhaomin
>> 
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