Forcing with bottom fluxes

[xupeng66]

Hello,

I have been using ana_btflux.h to define analytical bottom T and S fluxes in my simulations. This is very cumbersome in particular when I need to specify time-varying fluxes at discrete locations. I am thus curious to know if those bottom fluxes can be read from an external NETCDF file like the other forcing variables. According to varinfo.dat, it seems that the forcing file needs to contain two variables 'bhflux', and 'bwflux' for bottom heat and salt flux, respectively. However, those variables appear to be different from 'btflx' defined in ana_btflux.h. For example, 'bhflux' is defined in 'varinfo.dat' as the net bottom heat flux in units 'watt/m^2', whereas the T component of 'btflx' is in units 'degree C m/s'. This is very confusing. Could someone please clarify how to specify bottom T/S fluxes in an external forcing file?

Thanks!
Guangyu

[xupeng66]

I looked into the source code and found that 'bhflux' is heat flux density in 'watt/m^2' as listed in varinfo.dat. After being read from the external forcing file, 'bhflux' is converted internally to knematic heat flux in 'deg C m/s'. The corresponding variable in ana_btflux.h is kinematic heat flux.