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Adjoint data assimilation in an open ocean barotropic quasi-geostrophic model

University of British Columbia

A barotropic quasi-geostrophic ocean model with open boundaries was used to model a system of mid-ocean eddies. A simplified adjoint assimilation scheme was tested to see if sparse velocity data could be assimilated into the model at regular intervals. In between the times for data assimilation, the model was integrated forward in time with an Orlanski radiating boundary condition. This assimilation scheme was tested with several model runs, illustrating the changes arising from using different eddy sizes, different density of available data, and different numerical model parameters. This scheme was also compared with a bicubic interpolation scheme. During data assimilation, the resulting velocity field was generally more accurate than that obtained by interpolation alone. However, the Orlanski radiating boundary condition was not very effective in suppressing the growth of errors after data assimilation.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2008-09-18

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/2271

Oceanography

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace