Fast Ocean Atmosphere Model

Liu et al. (1999b), in simulations examining the response of the Fast Ocean Atmosphere Model (FOAM Jacob, 1998) to 11,000 yr B.P. orbital forcing, have shown that El Nino variability is reduced by ca. 20% and the spectral bandwidth of El Nino changes from the broad (3-10 year) peak characteristic of the modern simulations to a narrower peak (2-3 year) at 11,000 yr B.P. This reduction in the variability appears to be associated with the simulated increase in the Indian summer monsoon. There are, however, a number of mechanisms through which changes in the Indian summer mon.soon circulation appear to impact the El NiiTo signal. First, the enhanced Indian monsoon... 

The advent of fast computers and the availability of detailed data on the occurrence of certain chemical species have made it possible to construct meaningful cycle models with a much smaller and faster spatial and temporal resolution. These spatial and time scales correspond to those in weather forecast models, i.e. down to 100 km and 1 h. Transport processes (e.g., for CO2 and sulfur compounds) in the oceans and atmosphere can be explicitly described in such models. These are often referred to as "tracer transport models." This type of model will also be discussed briefly in this chapter. 

One mesoscale model, i.e., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) s Weather Research Forecast model with Chemistry (WRF/Chem) (Grell et al. 2005 Fast et al. 2006 Zhang et al. 2010a)... 

Carbon dioxide is constantly exchanged between the ocean and atmosphere. Each year the ocean and atmosphere exchange about 350 Gt CO2, with a net ocean uptake currently of about 8 Gt CO2. Because of this exchange, questions arise as to how effective ocean sequestration will be at keeping the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Specifically, is the sequestration permanent, and if not, how fast does the CO2 leak back to the atmosphere. Because there has been no long-term CO2 direct-injection experiment in the ocean, the long-term effectiveness of direct CO2 injection must be predicted based on observations of other oceanic tracers (e.g., radiocarbon) and on computer models of ocean circulation and chemistry. 

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