The structure of the wind-driven circulation in the subtropical South Pacific is studied using simple diagnostic and analytical models. The diagnostic calculation is based on the Levitus climatology. The analytical model is forced by observed winter mixed layer density and depth calculated from the Levitus climatology and by the surface wind stress data from the Hellerman and Rosenstein climato...

A new objective method to determine the height of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) is presented here. PBL heights are computed using the statistical variance and kurtosis of dewpoint and virtual potential temperature differences measured from radio soundings at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. These height...

FAMOUS is an ocean-atmosphere general circulation model of low resolution, based on version 4.5 of the UK MetOffice Unified Model. Here we update the model description to account for changes in the model as it is used in the CMIP5 EMIC model intercomparison project (EMICmip) and a number of other studies. Most of these changes correct errors found in the code. The EMICmip version of the model (...