Formulation and Calibration of CATKE, a One‐Equation Parameterization for Microscale Ocean Mixing
Name
J Adv Model Earth Syst - 2025 - Wagner - Formulation and Calibration of CATKE a One‐Equation Parameterization for.pdf
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Published version
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7.69 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Wagner, Gregory LeClaire
Hillier, Adeline
Constantinou, Navid C
Silvestri, Simone
Souza, Andre
Burns, Keaton J
Hill, Chris
Campin, Jean‐Michel
Marshall, John
Ferrari, Raffaele
Date Issued
April 21, 2025
Journal
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
Wagner, G. L., Hillier, A., Constantinou, N. C., Silvestri, S., Souza, A., Burns, K. J., et al. (2025). Formulation and calibration of CATKE, a one-equation parameterization for microscale ocean mixing. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 17, e2024MS004522.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We describe CATKE, a parameterization for fluxes associated with small‐scale or “microscale”ocean turbulent mixing on scales between 1 and 100 m. CATKE uses a downgradient formulation that dependson a prognostic turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) variable and a diagnostic mixing length scale that includes adynamic convective adjustment (CA) component. With its dynamic convective mixing length, CATKE predictsnot just the depth spanned by convective plumes but also the characteristic convective mixing timescale, animportant aspect of turbulent convection not captured by simpler static CA schemes. As a result, CATKE candescribe the competition between convection and other processes such as shear‐driven mixing and baroclinicrestratification. To calibrate CATKE, we use Ensemble Kalman Inversion to minimize the error between 21large eddy simulations (LESs) and predictions of the LES data by CATKE‐parameterized single columnsimulations at three different vertical resolutions. We find that CATKE makes accurate predictions of bothidealized and realistic LES compared to microscale turbulence parameterizations commonly used in climatemodels.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004522
