Design and Validation of an Offline Oceanic Tracer Transport Model for a Carbon Cycle Study

Abstract

Abstract An offline passive tracer transport model with self-operating diagnostic-mode vertical mixing and horizontal diffusion parameterizations is used with assimilated ocean currents to find the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC-11) cycle in oceans. This model was developed at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) under the carbon cycle research project inside the Greenhouse Gas Observing Satellite (GOSAT) modeling group. The model borrows offline fields from precalculated monthly archives of assimilated ocean currents, temperature, and salinity, and it evolves a prognostic passive tracer with prescribed surface forcing. The model’s performance is validated by simulating the CFC-11 cycle in the ocean starting from the preindustrial period (1938) with observed anthropogenic perturbations of atmospheric CFC-11 to comply with the Ocean Carbon-Cycle Model Intercomparison Project Phase-2 (OCMIP-2) flux protocol. The model results are compared with ship observations as well as the results of candidate models of OCMIP-2 and a performance is assessed. The model simulates the deep-ventilation processes in the Atlantic Ocean appreciably well and yields a good agreement in the column inventory of the CFC-11 amplitude and phase compared to the observation. The statistical skill test shows that this model outperforms other candidate models of OCMIP-2 because of its higher resolution and assimilated offline input feeding, and it shows a potential role in improving transport calculation in the ocean with cost-effective computation.