THE GENERAL-CIRCULATION RESPONSES OF HIGH-RESOLUTION NORTH-ATLANTIC OCEAN MODELS TO SYNTHETIC SCATTEROMETER WINDS

High-resolution (1/5 degrees X 1/6 degrees) Quasigeostrophic models of the North Atlantic Ocean are forced by daily wind stress curl fields of controlled wavenumber content. In the low-wavenumber case, the wind stress curl is derived from a low-pass filtering of ECMWF wind fields such that the retained wavenumber band is observed to obey a k(-2) po wer law in the spectrum for each day (where k is the wavenumber vector ). In a second case, the wavenumber content of the wind stress curl fi elds is comparable to that derivable from an ideal scatterometer-wind dataset. Decadal-average streamfunction fields are compared with a cli matology of dynamic topography and compared between the model calculat ions driven by these synthetic wind stress curl datasets with the goal of testing the sensitivity of the general circulation to high-wavenum ber forcing. The largest signal in decadal-average streamfunction resp onse to high-wavenumber forcing occurs in the eastern basin of the Nor th Atlantic. Fields of mean kinetic and eddy kinetic energies are enha nced in the eastern basin of the North Atlantic by 0.5 and 1.0 orders of magnitude, respectively, in calculations forced by the scatteromete r-like wind stress curl. Model solutions are compared with the implied Sverdrup streamfunctions for each forcing dataset, and parallel exper iments are performed with a linearized quasigeostrophic model. Conclus ions are drawn regarding the operative dynamics and the wavenumber ban d of importance in improving the model general circulation. It is note d that present day and planned scatterometer missions are capable of r esolving the requisite spatial scales.