EXPERIMENTS OF A REDUCED GRID IN LASG/IAPWORLD OCEANGENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS (OGCMs)

Due to the decrease in grid size associated with the convergence of meridians toward the poles in spherical coordinates, the time steps in many global climate models with finite-difference method are restricted to be unpleasantly small. To overcome the problem, a reduced grid is introduced to LASG/IAP world ocean general circulation models. The reduced grid is implemented successfully in the coarser resolutions version model L30T63 at first. Then, it is carried out in the improved version model LICOM with finer resolutions. In the experiment with model L30T63, under time step unchanged though, execution time per single model run is shortened significantly owing to the decrease of grid number and filtering execution in high latitudes. Results from additional experiments with L30T63 show that the time step of integration can be quadrupled at most in reduced grid with refinement ratio 3. In the experiment with model LICOM and with the model’s original time step unchanged, the model covered area is extended to the whole globe from its original case with the grid point of North Pole considered as an isolated island and the results of experiment are shown to be acceptable.