Numerical issues for coupling biological models with isopycnal mixing schemes

In regions of sloping isopycnals, isopycnal mixing acting in conjunction with biological cycling can produce patterns in the nutrient field which have negative values of tracer in light water and unrealistically large values of tracer in dense water. Under certain circumstances, these patterns can start to grow unstably. This paper discusses why such behavior occurs. Using a simple four-box model, it demonstrates that the instability appears when the isopycnal slopes exceed the grid aspect ratio (Δz/Δx). In contrast to other well known instabilities of the CFL type, this instability does not depend on the time step or time-stepping scheme. Instead it arises from a fundamental incompatibility between two requirements for isopycnal mixing schemes, namely that they should produce no net flux of passive tracer across an isopycnal and everywhere reduce tracer extrema. In order to guarantee no net flux of tracer across an isopycnal, some upgradient fluxes across certain parts of an isopycnal are required to balance downgradient fluxes across other parts of the isopycnal. However, these upgradient fluxes can cause local maxima in the nutrient field to become self-reinforcing. Although this is less of a problem in larger domains, there is still a strong tendency for isopycnal mixing to overconcentrate tracer in the dense water. The introduction of eddy-induced advection is shown to be capable of counteracting the upgradient fluxes of nutrient which cause problems, stabilizing the solution. The issue is not simply a numerical curiosity. When used in a GCM, different parameterizations of eddy mixing result in noticeably different distributions of nutrient and large differences in biological production. While much of this is attributable to differences in convection and circulation, the numerical errors described here may also play an important role in runs with isopycnal mixing alone.