Identification

Title

Influence of ocean model horizontal resolution on the representation of global annual‐to‐multidecadal coastal sea level variability

Abstract

Emerging high‐resolution global ocean climate models are expected to improve both hindcasts and forecasts of coastal sea level variability by better resolving ocean turbulence and other small‐scale phenomena. To examine this hypothesis, we compare annual to multidecadal coastal sea level variability over the 1993–2018 period, as observed by tide gauges and as simulated by two identically forced ocean models, at (LR) and (HR) horizontal resolution. Differences between HR and LR, and misfits with tide gauges, are spatially coherent at regional alongcoast scales. Resolution‐related improvements are largest in, and near, marginal seas. Near attached western boundary currents, sea level variance is several times greater in HR than LR, but correlations with observations may be reduced, due to intrinsic ocean variability. Globally, in HR simulations, intrinsic variability comprises from zero to over 80% of coastal sea level variance. Outside of eddy‐rich regions, simulated coastal sea level variability is generally damped relative to observations. We hypothesize that weak coastal variability is related to large‐scale, remotely forced, variability; in both HR and LR, tropical sea level variance is underestimated by 50% relative to satellite altimetric observations. Similar coastal dynamical regimes (e.g., attached western boundary currents) exhibit a consistent sensitivity to horizontal resolution, suggesting that these findings are generalizable to regions with limited coastal observations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rr23k5

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2024-12-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact