An air-sea coupled modeling study in the Bay of Plenty, NZ

Examination of air-sea coupling processes in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand is conducted using the U.S. Navy's high resolution mesoscale model COAMPS. In this study, fully two-way coupled simulations were run for a two-week long field experiment that took place during Feb/March of 2009. The underlying motivation for the experiment was to sample the structure and evolution of sea/land breeze flows during a synoptically active period. Comparisons are made to one-way coupled runs in which the ocean was described by a 12-hourly updated, highly resolved sea surface temperature analysis (NCODA). The marine boundary layer response to an evolving sea surface and feedbacks to atmospheric sea surface stability are evaluated. We investigate the implications of air-sea coupled modeling on the development of surface and boundary layers and the ability to improve the prediction of atmospheric refractivity, which is critical for characterizing environmental effects upon Navy radar operations.