Ocean Model Open Boundary Conditions with Volume, Heat and Salinity Conservation Constraints

Open boundary conditions (OBCs) for a regional ocean model that can be integrated stably over a long timeframe, as well as satisfy the volume, heat and salinity conservation constraints, were developed. First, the idea that the inward and outward flux information can be treated separately in the OBCs was adopted. Second, in order to maintain the property that the volume, heat and salinity remains conserved in the simulation domain, conservation constraints were added to the OBCs, and an inverse method utilized to solve the constraint equations. Ideal experiments were designed to investigate the conservation property, and the OBCs were found to work efficiently to maintain the volume, heat and salinity conservation. It was found that simulations were comparable to observations when the OBCs were applied to a regional ocean model.