A New Tracer Advection Scheme for Bryan and Cox Type Ocean General Circulation Models

Abstract

In regions with large tracer gradients and/or velocities the advection scheme that is used in many ocean models leads to significant under- and overshoot of the tracer values. In the case of the U.K. Fine Resolution Antarctic Model (FRAM), this lead to unphysical negative surface temperatures in some regions and overheating in others. In this paper, a new advection scheme is proposed and tested in the ocean model context using a limited-area model centered on a region where problems occurred in FRAM.