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<font size="4">Please join us for our next EOAS Colloquium speaker,
Dr. Mark Bourassa of EOAS, TODAY at 3pm:</font>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Title: Roles and Impacts of
Current, Surface Stress and Wind Interactions in a Coupled
Ocean/Atmosphere System</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Interaction between the ocean and the
atmosphere on ‘large’ scales is usually thought of as
dominated by thermodynamic interactions influencing the
atmosphere and both wind stress and thermodynamics influencing
the ocean. For models with grid spacing exceeding 20 km the
role of currents in modifying this coupling is quite small. As
model resolution improves, currents have been shown to have a
substantial impact on the ocean. Accounting for how currents
modify stress causes has been explored for ocean impacts while
assuming that the atmosphere is otherwise unchanged. This
modified stress results in more vertical motion in the ocean’s
mixed layer and excessively reduces ocean eddies. These ocean
responses will be demonstrated with and without atmospheric
responses and it well be shown that these responses are very
important and that they are highly dependent on atmospheric
resolution. At sufficiently high resolution the atmosphere is
much more variable than with coarser grid spacing, and
currents contribute to organizing some of this variability,
further complicating the ocean response. Part of the
atmospheric response to currents will be shown to be patterns
of curl and divergence of surface wind and stress, with a
vorticity structure that extends to the top of the atmospheric
boundary-layer and extends horizontally well beyond the strong
current gradients. For the region and season examined, this
coupling process causes modest changes in the atmospheric mean
state. The impacts are wind speed dependent with a greater
response associated with higher wind speeds. Interactions with
an atmospheric front will be used to demonstrate relatively
extreme atmospheric changes associated with ocean surface
currents. <br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">If you need a zoom link, please contact Dr.
Zhaohua Wu <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:zwu@fsu.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">zwu@fsu.edu</a>.<br>
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