LAYER OUTCROPPING IN NUMERICAL-MODELS OF STRATIFIED FLOWS

Layered models of stratified flow are favored by theoreticians because of their conceptual simplicity but have only seen limited use in nume rical modeling due to difficulties related to layer outcropping (vanis hing layer depth). Two mass transport schemes capable of handling outc ropping are tested against analytic solutions describing wind- and buo yancy-forced flow in a two- and three-layer ocean. In both cases, the model is found to closely reproduce the available analytic solutions. This result helps alleviate longstanding reservations about the severi ty of the outcrop problem in layer models.