The development of the regional coupled ocean-atmosphere model RCAO

A regional coupled ocean-atmosphere-ice general circulation model for northern Europe is introduced for climate study purposes. The Baltic Sea is interactively coupled. The coupled model is validated in a 5-year hind-cast experiment with a focus on surface quantities and atmosphere-ocean heat fluxes. The coupled sea surface temperature matches observations well. The system is free of drift, does not need flux corrections and is suitable for multi-year climate runs. With flux forcing from the atmospheric model the regional ocean model gives sea surface temperatures statistically equivalent to the uncoupled ocean model forced by observations. Other oceanic surface quantities do not reach this quality in…