Diagnosis and validation of the time and spatial variability of remotely generated internal waves in global ocean simulations

PI: Buijsman, Maarten (University of Southern Mississippi)
Start Year: 2022 | Duration: 3 years
Partners: National Research Laboratory, University of Michigan

Project Abstract:

This USM/UM/NRL proposal and the SIO/WHOI/JPL proposal “A Distributed Network of Internal Wave Resolving Moored Arrays for Assessing Tide-Resolving Model Fields and Improving Forecasts in the Coastal Ocean” are two synergistic pieces of a two-piece puzzle; both have been submitted to this NOPP call. In the SIO/WHOI/JPL proposal a full water column Internal Wave Resolving (IWR) Array is designed and deployed in the Cal/Val area off the U.S. West Coast to resolve unidirectional near-inertial, diurnal, and semidiurnal internal waves from remote and local sources, and their continuum. In this proposal, which is in front of you, we will use several data sets to verify and improve the internal wave predictability in the far field in global HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) simulations with tides, data assimilation, and realistic atmospheric forcing. While near-field internal waves are reasonably well simulated in HYCOM, the model performance in the far field is not-well studied and understood. We will validate HYCOM using the IWR Array and SWOT data collected during the fast-sampling and science orbit phases. We will apply directional filtering techniques to separate unidirectional waves, allowing us to study the wave energy decay along a beam. Moreover, we will prepare SWOT data to be ingested in HYCOM’s data-assimilative system to further improve predictability of internal waves, whose phase and amplitude in the far field are affected by the location of mesoscale eddies. Finally, we will perform ensemble HYCOM simulations with perturbed eddy fields to quantify uncertainty in model internal wave fields.