Coupled ocean-atmosphere nested modeling of the Adriatic Sea during winter and spring 2001

[1] Realistic simulations of the Adriatic Sea for over 125 days are conducted using the Navy Coastal Ocean Model with atmospheric forcing provided by the Coupled Ocean/ Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS is a registered trademark of the Naval Research Laboratory (COAMP(TM))). In two separate simulations of the Adriatic, a nested 2-km-resolution ocean model is forced by the inner (4-km) and outer (36-km) nests of the atmospheric model. Two meteorological stations and two acoustic Doppler current profiler observation sites are used to evaluate modeled atmosphere and ocean velocity fields for 28 January - 4 June 2001. Modeled/observed correlations of atmospheric 10-m velocity are greater than 0.85 for both resolution models. Oceanic 5- and 25-m current fluctuations from both simulations generally match the magnitude and orientation of the observations. The 4-km-resolution atmospheric model is differentiated from the 36-km-resolution model by its ability to resolve the small-scale flow structures of the bora'' wind and by its better agreement with observed wind velocity statistics. The ocean simulation forced by the 4-km-resolution model is distinguished from the one forced by the 36-km-resolution model by its ability to reproduce the expected double-gyre circulation in the northern Adriatic and by its ability to better capture the magnitude and shape of the observed depth-dependent velocity correlation with wind at the deeper site. Though the 36-km forced ocean model agrees better with many observed velocity statistics, the 4-km forced ocean model produces the highest correlations with observations ( exceeding 0.78) at subsurface depths that are most strongly correlated with winds.