On the influence of the horizontal viscosity parametrization on the thermohaline circulation in the ocean model

The three-dimensional seasonally forced linear model of the World ocean climate with a real bottom and 24 levels in the vertical coordinate has been developed. The computational domain includes the Arctic ocean. The numerical method is based on using the implicit schemes. The equations of heat and salt transport on a horizontal coordinates are approximated by the nine-dot difference scheme, obtained with the Richardson extrapolation. The second up-wind scheme is used in the vertical coordinate. The main objectives of the model are reconstructions of the ocean large-scale thermohaline circulation. The model circulation is forced by prescribing the wind stress and surface values of temperature and salinity. A global distribution of temperature and salinity fields is in agreement with observations. This paper reports the results from the coarse-resolution World Ocean numerical experiments on simulation of the mechanism of the deep water formation in high latitudes of the North Atlantic. We study the sensitivity of the World ocean fields towards horizontal viscosity and the effects of the dependence of the sea water density on pressure.