The Coupled Ocean—Atmosphere Modeling Problem in the Tropical Pacific and Asian Monsoon Regions

Abstract Two ocean formulations, one a simple, 50-m slab ocean and another a coarse-resolution global ocean general circulation model (GCM), are coupled to a global atmospheric GCM. To determine what part of the simulation errors is introduced by the atmospheric model and what part arises from limitations of the ocean formulation, results are compared to observations as well as to integrations involving the ocean GCM run with observed atmospheric forcing and the atmospheric GCM run with specified observed sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The tropical Indian and Pacific regions are studied because of the associations involving the dynamically coupled ocean-atmosphere system in those regions related to large-scale tropics and global interannual variability. Analysis of the net surface heat flux leads to the conclusion that limitations in the ocean formulations contribute more to errors in the coupled climate simulations than inherent deficiencies in the atmospheric model. In spite of the limitations of the ...