The vertical advection of momentum in Bryan-Cox-Semtner ocean general circulation models

Abstract

It is shown that the approximations involved in deriving the finite-difference momentum equation lead to an error in the estimated vertical flux of momentum. It is found that the error is largest in features that are only just resolved by the model grid and that the magnitude of the largest error increases as the grid size is reduced. An improved finite-difference scheme is presented that greatly reduces the error. -from Author