Aircraft Observations of Sea-Surface Turbulent Fluxes Near the California Coast

Aircraft turbulence data from the Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network project were analyzed and compared to the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) bulk parametrization of turbulent fluxes in an ocean area near the coast of California characterized by complex atmospheric flow. Turbulent fluxes measured at about 35 m above the sea surface using the eddy-correlation method were lower than bulk estimates under unstable and stable atmospheric stratification for all but light winds. Neutral turbulent transfer coefficients were used in this comparison because they remove the effects of mean atmospheric conditions and atmospheric stability. Spectral analysis suggested that kilometre-scale longitudinal rolls affect significantly turbulence measurements even near the sea surface, depending on sampling direction. Cross-wind sampling tended to capture all the available turbulent energy. Vertical soundings showed low boundary-layer depths and high flux divergence near the sea surface in the case of sensible heat flux but minimal flux divergence for the momentum flux. Cross-wind sampling and flux divergence were found to explain most of the observed discrepancies between the measured and bulk flux estimates. At low wind speeds the drag coefficient determined with eddy correlation and an inertial dissipation method after corrections were applied still showed high values compared to bulk estimates. This discrepancy correlated with the dominance of sea swell, which was a usually observed condition under low wind speeds. Under stable atmospheric conditions measured sensible heat fluxes, which usually have low values over the ocean, were possibly affected by measurement errors and deviated significantly from bulk estimates.     

Storm track response to ocean fronts in a global high-resolution climate model

Synoptic atmospheric eddies are affected by lower tropospheric air-temperature gradients and by turbulent heat fluxes from the surface. In this study we examine how ocean fronts affect these quantities and hence the storm tracks. We focus on two midlatitude regions where ocean fronts lie close to the storm tracks: the north-west Atlantic and the Southern Ocean. An atmospheric climate model of reasonably high resolution (~50 km) is applied in a climate-length (60 year) simulation in order to obtain stable statistics. Simulations with frontal structure in the sea surface temperature (SST) in one of the regions are compared against simulations with globally smoothed SST. We show that in both regions the ocean fronts have a strong influence on the transient eddy heat and moisture fluxes, not just in the boundary layer, but also in the free troposphere. Local differences in these quantities between the simulations reach 20–40 % of the maximum values in the simulation with smoothed SST. Averaged over the entire region of the storm track over the ocean the corresponding differences are 10–20 %. The effect on the transient eddy meridional wind variance is strong in the boundary layer but relatively weak above that. The potential mechanisms by which the ocean fronts influence the storm tracks are discussed, and our results are compared against previous studies with regional models, Aquaplanet models, and coarse resolution coupled models.     

Air-sea Interaction of Typhoon Sinlaku （2002） Simulated by the Canadian MC2 Model

Three experiments for the simulation of typhoon Sinlaku (2002) over the western North Pacific are performed in this study by using the Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community (MC2) atmospheric model. The objective of these simulations is to investigate the air-sea interaction during extreme weather conditions, and to determine the sensitivity of the typhoon evolution to the sea surface temperature (SST)cooling induced by the typhoon. It is shown from the three experiments that the surface heat fluxes have a substantial influence on the slow-moving cyclone over its lifetime. When the SST in the East China coastal ocean becomes 1℃ cooler in the simulation, less latent heat and sensible heat fluxes from the underlying ocean to the cyclone tend to reduce the typhoon intensity. The cyclone is weakened by 7 hPa at the time of its peak intensity. The SST cooling also has impacts on the vertical structure of the typhoon by weakening the warm core and drying the eye wall. With a finer horizontal resolution of (1/6)°×(1/6)°, the model produces higher surface wind, and therefore more surface heat fluxes are emitted from the ocean surface to the cyclone, in the finer-resolution MC2 grid compared with the relatively lower resolution of 0.25°×0.25°MC2 grid.     

Effects of freshwater runoff on a tropical pacific climate in the HadGEM2

This paper investigates the effects of river discharge on simulated climatology from 1979 to 1988 using the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 2. Two experiments are performed with and without the inclusion of Total Runoff Integrating Pathways. The results show that the inclusion of flow routing can lead to the decrease of salinity over the coastal region due to freshwater. This reduction results in a shallower mixed layer depth, which in turn leads to the weakening of trade winds and a decrease in vertical mixing in the ocean. The enhanced sensible and latent heat fluxes over warmed SST improve the simulated precipitation and thermodynamic circulation. As a result, the experiment with flow routing is capable of improving the large-scale climate feature with an increase in precipitation over the eastern tropical equatorial Pacific region.     

Modelling the Interaction Between a River Surface and the Atmosphere at the Bottom of a Valley

The role of a river of small dimensions in driving the surface exchange of sensible and latent heat fluxes at the bottom of a valley is investigated using large-eddy simulation (LES). Simulations were performed using different valley topographies, river widths and large-scale wind speed and direction. In all cases, the river acted as a sink of both sensible and latent heat during daytime. Despite the general agreement concerning the flux direction above the river surface, specific differences exist between the simulations. The topography enhances the wind divergence caused by the river, and the larger negative surface fluxes above the river occur when there are no slopes, a consequence of larger wind speeds above the river. For large-scale winds aligned with the valley axis, the surface fluxes depend on the large-scale wind speed, but this dependence is reduced if the large-scale wind is perpendicular to the valley axis. There is a minimum of temperature and a maximum of specific humidity above the river surface. The scalar budgets show that sensible heat flux converges above the river, being balanced by the warm air subsidence at the centre of the valley. Latent heat fluxes, on the other hand, converge above the river surface, and they are balanced by the horizontal advection of humidity towards the river margins.     

Resolution Sensitivity and Scaling of Large-Eddy Simulations of the Stable Boundary Layer

Large-eddy simulations (LES) of the continuously turbulent quasi-equilibrium stable boundary layer (SBL) are conducted with grid lengths in the range of 12.5 m to 2 m, in order to explore resolution sensitivity, and determine at what point grid convergence occurs. The structure of the mean potential temperature, winds, and turbulent fluxes varies significantly over this resolution range. The highest resolution simulations show a significant degree of convergence. The dimensionless momentum diffusivity asymptotes to a value of 0.06, corresponding to a limiting flux Richardson number of 0.15.Using the converged simulations, some scaling hypotheses underpinning first-order and second-order closure models are revisited. The effective Richardson number stability functions of the LES are compared with the forms often used in numerical weather prediction (NWP). The mixing implied by the LES is less than that used in NWP. The commonly used similarity profiles for heat and momentum fluxes, and the scalings for dissipation and pressure covariances are compared with the LES. This information could provide guidance for the next generation of SBL parametrization schemes.     

Surface ocean response to synoptic-scale variability in wind stress and heat fluxes off south-central Chile

The effect of the high frequency (synoptic) variability of wind and heat fluxes upon the surface ocean off south-central Chile (west coast of South America) is investigated using a regional ocean model. We focus our analysis in austral summer, when the regional wind experiences significant day-to-day variability superimposed on a mean, upwelling favorable flow. To evaluate the nature and magnitude of these effects, we performed three identical simulations except for the surface forcing: the climatological run, with long-term monthly mean wind-stresses and heat fluxes; the wind-synoptic run, with daily wind stresses and climatological heat fluxes; and the full-synoptic run, with daily wind-stresses and daily fluxes. The mean currents and surface geostrophic EKE fields show no major differences between simulations, and agree well with those observed in this ocean area. Nevertheless, substantially more ageostrophic EKE is found in the simulations which include synoptic variability of wind-stresses, impacting the total surface EKE and diffusivities, particularly south of Punta Lavapie (37° S), where the lack of major currents implies low levels of geostrophic EKE. Summer mean SSTs are similar in all simulations and agree with observations, but SST variability along the coast is larger in the runs including wind-stress synoptic variability, suggesting a rather linear response of the ocean to cycles of southerly wind strengthening and relaxation. We found that coastal SST variability does not change significantly in the first tenths of kilometers from the shore when including daily heat fluxes, highlighting the prominent role of wind-driven upwelling cycles. In contrast, in the offshore region situated beyond the 50 km coastal strip, it is necessary to include synoptic variability in the heat fluxes to account for a realistic SST variability.     

Influence of coupling on atmosphere, sea ice and ocean regional models in the Ross Sea sector, Antarctica

Air–sea ice–ocean interactions in the Ross Sea sector form dense waters that feed the global thermohaline circulation. In this paper, we develop the new limited-area ocean–sea ice–atmosphere coupled model TANGO to simulate the Ross Sea sector. TANGO is built up by coupling the atmospheric limited-area model MAR to a regional configuration of the ocean–sea ice model NEMO. A method is then developed to identify the mechanisms by which local coupling affects the simulations. TANGO is shown to simulate realistic sea ice properties and atmospheric surface temperatures. These skills are mostly related to the skills of the stand alone atmospheric and oceanic models used to build TANGO. Nonetheless, air temperatures over ocean and winter sea ice thickness are found to be slightly improved in coupled simulations as compared to standard stand alone ones. Local atmosphere ocean feedbacks over the open ocean are found to significantly influence ocean temperature and salinity. In a stand alone ocean configuration, the dry and cold air produces an ocean cooling through sensible and latent heat loss. In a coupled configuration, the atmosphere is in turn moistened and warmed by the ocean; sensible and latent heat loss is therefore reduced as compared to the stand alone simulations. The atmosphere is found to be less sensitive to local feedbacks than the ocean. Effects of local feedbacks are increased in the coastal area because of the presence of sea ice. It is suggested that slow heat conduction within sea ice could amplify the feedbacks. These local feedbacks result in less sea ice production in polynyas in coupled mode, with a subsequent reduction in deep water formation.     

Sensitivity of simulated salinities in a three-dimensional ocean general circulation model to vertical mixing of destabilizing surface fluxes

 We present simulations performed with a three dimensional global ocean general circulation model which show that simulated salinities and amounts of convective mixing are very sensitive to vertical mixing of surface buoyancy fluxes. If, as usual, surface buoyancy fluxes are placed entirely in the topmost model level, our model produces excessive convective mixing in the Southern Ocean. This results in poor stimulated salinity in the Southern Ocean. In this simulation, we assume, as usual, that both surface buoyancy forcing and vertical mixing are homogeneous within each grid cell. If, on the other hand, destabilizing surface fluxes are instantaneously mixed into the subsurface ocean, the model produces much less convective mixing and much more realistic salinities. The vertical mixing of surface buoyancy fluxes performed in this simulation is equivalent to assuming that those fluxes affect only a small fraction of each grid cell, and cause vertical mixing only in that limited area. Our interpretation of these results is that the usual assumption that both surface buoyancy forcing and vertical mixing are uniform within each grid cell has a detrimental effect on model results; these results could be significantly improved by good parametrizations which treat the horizontal inhomogeneity of surface buoyancy forcing and of vertical mixing. Received: 25 February 1998 / Accepted: 9 September 1998     

The impact of a downslope water-transport parametrization in a global ocean general circulation model

The impact of a downslope water-transport parametrization on the circulation and water mass characteristics of a global depth-level ocean general circulation model is investigated. The spreading of dense water from the formation regions into the deep ocean is known to be poorly represented in depth-level models with no bottom boundary layer resolved or attached. The new scheme is simple and intends to parametrize the effects of various oceanographic processes (rather than the processes themselves) that help dense water to descend topographic slopes by which the formation regions are separated from the world ocean. The new scheme significantly improves the large scale properties of the North Atlantic Deep Water. Changes in the North Atlantic circulation, however, are rather small. In the Southern Ocean, the exchange between the dense water formation regions on the continental shelves and the deep ocean is strengthened at the expense of deep water mass formation by open ocean convection. In all three ocean basins, the density of the deep and bottom water is higher with the new parametrization, which brings the simulations closer to observations in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In the Pacific Ocean, however, where the density has already been well reproduced without the downslope transport, it becomes slightly too high. The results are in agreement with those from other model studies.     

全球热带海气耦合距平模式及其数值模拟

用观测海温距平对一个中等分辨率的细网格大气模式和观测 FSU假风应力对全球热带三大洋距平海洋模式分别进行强迫试验。结果表明 :无论是大气模式还是海洋模式均在一定程度上较好地模拟了观测事实 ,热带大西洋的模拟效果好于热带印度洋。对大气模式而言 ,经向风距平的模拟要好于纬向风距平 ,热带大西洋西部好于东部 ,热带印度洋东部好于西部 ,赤道南侧好于北侧。对海洋模式而言 ,热带大西洋模拟最好的区域是赤道中东部 ,对赤道东印度洋的暖事件及偶极子事件年际变率模拟也较好。在此基础上 ,用和海气耦合模式同样的耦合方式将两者耦合起来 ,构成了一个中等复杂程度的全球热带海气耦合模式 ,这是进一步研究全球热带海气相互作用的基础     

The role of horizontal resolution in simulating drivers of the global hydrological cycle

The role of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) horizontal resolution in representing the global energy budget and hydrological cycle is assessed, with the aim of improving the understanding of model uncertainties in simulating the hydrological cycle. We use two AGCMs from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre: HadGEM1-A at resolutions ranging from 270 to 60 km, and HadGEM3-A ranging from 135 to 25 km. The models exhibit a stable hydrological cycle, although too intense compared to reanalyses and observations. This over-intensity is explained by excess surface shortwave radiation, a common error in general circulation models (GCMs). This result is insensitive to resolution. However, as resolution is increased, precipitation decreases over the ocean and increases over the land. This is associated with an increase in atmospheric moisture transport from ocean to land, which changes the partitioning of moisture fluxes that contribute to precipitation over land from less local to more non-local moisture sources. The results start to converge at 60-km resolution, which underlines the excessive reliance of the mean hydrological cycle on physical parametrization (local unresolved processes) versus model dynamics (large-scale resolved processes) in coarser HadGEM1 and HadGEM3 GCMs. This finding may be valid for other GCMs, showing the necessity to analyze other chains of GCMs that may become available in the future with such a range of horizontal resolutions. Our finding supports the hypothesis that heterogeneity in model parametrization is one of the underlying causes of model disagreement in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) exercises.     

A numerical study of a TOGA-COARE squall-line using a coupled mesoscale atmosphere-ocean model

1. Introduction Air-sea interaction plays an important role in theglobal seasonal to inter-annual climate variability,most notably, the El Ni?no and Southern Oscillation(ENSO) phenomenon (Webster and Lukas, 1992). Be-cause of its widespread impacts on …     

Simulation of sea ice in FGOALS-g2: Climatology and late 20th century changes

Sea ice is an important component in the Earth’s climate system. Coupled climate system models are indispensable tools for the study of sea ice, its internal processes, interaction with other components, and projection of future changes. This paper evaluates the simulation of sea ice by the Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model Grid-point Version 2 (FGOALS-g2), in the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5), with a focus on historical experiments and late 20th century simulation. Through analysis, we find that FGOALS-g2 produces reasonable Arctic and Antarctic sea ice climatology and variability. Sea ice spatial distribution and seasonal change characteristics are well captured. The decrease of Arctic sea ice extent in the late 20th century is reproduced in simulations, although the decrease trend is lower compared with observations. Simulated Antarctic sea ice shows a reasonable distribution and seasonal cycle with high accordance to the amplitude of winter-summer changes. Large improvement is achieved as compared with FGOALS-g1.0 in CMIP3. Diagnosis of atmospheric and oceanic forcing on sea ice reveals several shortcomings and major aspects to improve upon in the future: (1) ocean model improvements to remove the artificial island at the North Pole; (2) higher resolution of the atmosphere model for better simulation of important features such as, among others, the Icelandic Low and westerly wind over the Southern Ocean; and (3) ocean model improvements to accurately receive freshwater input from land, and higher resolution for resolving major water channels in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.     

Analysis of the Slab Ocean El Nino atmospheric feedbacks in observed and simulated ENSO dynamics

In a recent study it was illustrated that the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) mode can exist in the absence of any ocean dynamics. This oscillating mode exists just due to the interaction between atmospheric heat fluxes and ocean heat capacity. The primary purpose of this study is to further explore these atmospheric Slab Ocean ENSO dynamics and therefore the role of positive atmospheric feedbacks in model simulations and observations. The positive solar radiation feedback to sea surface temperature (SST), due to reduced cloud cover for anomalous warm SSTs, is the main positive feedback in the Slab Ocean El Nino dynamics. The strength of this positive cloud feedback is strongly related to the strength of the equatorial cold tongue. The combination of positive latent and sensible heat fluxes to the west and negative ones to the east of positive anomalies leads to the westward propagation of the SST anomalies, which allows for oscillating behavior with a preferred period of 6–7 years. Several indications are found that parts of these dynamics are indeed observed and simulated in other atmospheric or coupled general circulation models (AGCMs or CGCMs). The CMIP3 AGCM-slab ensemble of 13 different AGCM simulations shows unstable ocean–atmosphere interactions along the equatorial Pacific related to stronger cold tongues. In observations and in the CMIP3 and CMIP5 CGCM model ensemble the strength and sign of the cloud feedback is a function of the strength of the cold tongue. In summary, this indicates that the Slab Ocean El Nino dynamics are indeed a characteristic of the equatorial Pacific climate that is only dominant or significantly contributing to the ENSO dynamics if the SST cold tongue is sufficiently strong. In the observations this is only the case during strong La Nina conditions. The presence of the Slab Ocean ENSO atmospheric feedbacks in observations and CGCM model simulations implies that the family of physical ENSO modes does have another member, which is entirely driven by atmospheric processes and does not need to have the same spatial pattern nor the same time scales as the main ENSO dynamics.     

A possible feedback mechanism involving the Arctic freshwater, the Arctic sea ice, and the North Atlantic Drift

Model studies point to enhanced warming and to increased freshwater fluxes to high northern latitudes in response to global warming. In order to address possible feedbacks in the ice-ocean system in response to such changes, the combined effect of increased freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean and Arctic warming--the latter manifested as a gradual melting of the Arctic sea ice--is examined using a 3-D isopycnic coordinate ocean general circulation model. A suite of three idealized experiments is carried out: one control integration, one integration with a doubling of the modern Arctic river runoff, and a third more extreme case, where the river runoff is five times the modern value. In the two freshwater cases, the sea ice thickness is reduced by 1.5-2 m in the central Arctic Ocean over a 50-year period. The modelled ocean response is qualitatively the same for both perturbation experiments: freshwater propagates into the Atlantic Ocean and the Nordic Seas, leading to an initial weakening of the North Atlantic Drift.Furthermore, changes in the geostrophic currents in the central Arctic and melting of the Arctic sea ice lead to an intensified Beaufort Gyre, which in turn increases the southward volume transport through the Canadian Archipelago. To compensate for this southward transport of mass, more warm and saline Atlantic water is carried northward with the North Atlantic Drift. It is found that the increased transport of salt into the northern North Atlantic and the Nordic Seas tends to counteract the impact of the increased freshwater originating from the Arctic, leading to a stabilization of the North Atlantic Drift.     

Global validation of the ISBA sub-grid hydrology

Over recent years, many numerical studies have suggested that the land surface hydrology contributes to atmospheric variability and predictability on a wide range of scales. Conversely, land surface models (LSMs) have been also used to study the hydrological impacts of seasonal climate anomalies and of global warming. Validating these models at the global scale is therefore a crucial task, which requires off-line simulations driven by realistic atmospheric fluxes to avoid the systematic biases commonly found in the atmospheric models. The present study is aimed at validating a new land surface hydrology within the ISBA LSM. Global simulations are conducted at a 1° by 1° horizontal resolution using 3-hourly atmospheric forcings provided by the Global Soil Wetness Project. Compared to the original scheme, the new hydrology includes a comprehensive and consistent set of sub-grid parametrizations in order to account for spatial heterogeneities of topography, vegetation, and precipitation within each grid cell. The simulated runoff is converted into river discharge using the total runoff integrating pathways (TRIP) river routing model (RRM), and compared with available monthly observations at 80 gauging stations distributed over the world’s largest river basins. The simulated discharges are also compared with parallel global simulations from five alternative LSMs. Globally, the new sub-grid hydrology performs better than the original ISBA scheme. Nevertheless, the improvement is not so clear in the high-latitude river basins (i.e. Ob, MacKenzie), which can be explained by a too late snow melt in the ISBA model. Over specific basins (i.e. Parana, Niger), the quality of the simulated discharge is also limited by the TRIP RRM, which does not account for the occurrence of seasonal floodplains and for their significant impact on the basin-scale water budget.     

Storm Surges in the Strait of Georgia Simulated with a Regional Model

The Strait of Georgia is a large, semi-enclosed body of water between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia connected to the Pacific Ocean via Juan de Fuca Strait at the south and Johnstone Strait at the north. During the winter months, coastal communities along the Strait of Georgia are at risk of flooding caused by storm surges, a natural hazard that can occur when a strong storm coincides with high tide. This investigation produces storm surge hindcasts using a three-dimensional numerical ocean model for the Strait of Georgia and the surrounding bodies of water (Juan de Fuca Strait, Puget Sound, and Johnstone Strait) collectively known as the Salish Sea. The numerical model employs the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean architecture in a regional configuration. The model is evaluated through comparisons of tidal elevation harmonics and storm surge with observations. Important forcing factors contributing to storm surges are assessed. It is shown that surges entering the domain from the Pacific Ocean make the most significant contribution to surge amplitude within the Strait of Georgia. Comparisons between simulations and high-resolution and low-resolution atmospheric forcing further emphasize that remote forcing is the dominant factor in surge amplitudes in this region. In addition, local wind patterns caused a slight increase in surge amplitude on the mainland side of the Strait of Georgia compared with Vancouver Island coastal areas during a major wind storm on 15 December 2006. Generally, surge amplitudes are found to be greater within the Strait of Georgia than in Juan de Fuca Strait.     

The Role of Ocean Dynamics in the Cross-equatorial Energy Transport under a Thermal Forcing in the Southern Ocean

Under external heating forcing in the Southern Ocean, climate models project anomalous northward atmosphere heat transport (AHT) across the equator, accompanied by a southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). Comparison between a fully coupled and a slab ocean model shows that the inclusion of active ocean dynamics tends to partition the cross-equatorial energy transport and significantly reduce the ITCZ shift response by a factor of 10, a finding which supports previous studies. To understand how ocean dynamics damps the ITCZ's response to an imposed thermal heating in the Southern Ocean, we examine the ocean heat transport (OHT) and ocean circulation responses in a set of fully coupled experiments. Results show that both the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic contribute to transport energy across the equator mainly through its Eulerian-mean component. However, different from previous studies that linked the changes in OHT to the changes in the wind-driven subtropical cells or the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), our results show that the cross-equatorial OHT anomaly is due to a broad clockwise overturning circulation anomaly below the subtropical cells (approximately bounded by the 5℃ to 20℃ isotherms and 50°S to 10°N). Further elimination of the wind-driven component, conducted by prescribing the climatological wind stress in the Southern Ocean heat perturbation experiments, leads to little change in OHT, suggesting that the OHT response is predominantly thermohaline-driven by air-sea thermal interactions.     

An efficient climate model with a 3D ocean and statistical–dynamical atmosphere*

We describe a coupled climate model of intermediate complexity designed for use in global warming experiments. The atmospheric component is a two-dimensional (zonally averaged) statistical-dynamical model based on the Goddard Institute for Space Study's atmospheric general circulation model (GCM). In contrast with energy-balance models used in some climate models of intermediate complexity, this model includes full representation of the hydrological and momentum cycles. It also has parameterizations of the main physical processes, including a sophisticated radiation code. The ocean component is a coarse resolution ocean GCM with simplified global geometry based on the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory modular ocean model. Because of the simplified geometry the resolution in the western boundary layers can be readily increased compared to conventional coarse resolution models, without increasing the model's computational requirements in a significant way. The ocean model's efficiency is also greatly increased by using a moderate degree of asynchronous coupling between the oceanic momentum and tracer fields. We demonstrate that this still allows an accurate simulation of transient behavior, including the seasonal cycle. A 100 years simulation with the model requires less than 8 hours on a state-of the art workstation. The main novelty of the model is therefore a combination of computational efficiency, statistical-dynamical atmosphere and 3D ocean. Long-term present-day climate simulations are carried out using the coupled model with and without flux adjustments, and with either the Gent-McWilliams (GM) parametrization scheme or horizontal diffusion (HD) in the ocean. Deep ocean temperatures systematically decrease in the runs without flux adjustment. We demonstrate that the mismatch between heat transports in the uncoupled states of two models is the main cause for the systematic drift. In addition, changes in the circulation and sea-ice formation also contribute to the drift. Flux adjustments in the freshwater fluxes are shown to have a stabilizing effect on the thermohaline circulation in the model, whereas the adjustments in the heat fluxes tend to weaken the global "conveyor". To evaluate the model's response to transient external forcing global warming simulations are also carried out with the flux-adjusted version of the coupled model. The coupled model reproduces reasonably well the behavior of more sophisticated coupled GCMs for both current climate and for the global warming scenarios.