get the potential temperature at the surface

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fanqing · #1 Unread post by **fanqing** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:10 pm

Since vertically the potential temperature is on the "RHO" levels, for which the Nth level is not exactly the ocean surface. How to get the potential temperature at the ocean's very surface ? Can I set up the vertical coordinate so that the top level z_r=0 too (like z_w) ?

kate · #2 Unread post by **kate** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:21 pm

Short answer - no. You'd break the whole finite volume formulation for ROMS, plus you'd have to change the vertical operations such as diffusivity. If you truly need a surface temperature and you think there is some sort of thin boundary layer there, it will take some special coding. The ice model does this (and I don't really understand it).

fanqing · #3 Unread post by **fanqing** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:59 pm

Thank you. One of the situations when the SST is needed, is when doing air sea coupling, you need to send SST to the atmospheric model.