Development of a Regional Climate Coupled Model for the Seas around Korea
Hee Seok Jung, Chan Joo Jang and Ho-Jeong Shin
Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do, R Korea
E-mail: cjjang@kiost.ac.kr
The ocean in a regional climate model has been prescribed with observational data of sea surface
temperature (SST) or simulated by a slab ocean model often with one-dimensional mixed layer. The
prescription of SST does not allow air-sea interaction, and a slab ocean model does not simulate threedimensional ocean circulation to depth. To overcome such limitations, we have developed a regional
climate coupled model (RCCM) for the Northwest Pacific region including the seas around Korea
through a two-way coupling of an atmospheric model WRF and an ocean model ROMS. In this study,
we have analyzed the coupling effects separately from the downscaling effects by conducting an
experiment with the ocean-only model forced with atmospheric reanalysis data and another
experiment with a one-way coupling in which the ocean model is inputted with the regional
atmospheric model output. The results show that the RCCM overestimates the interannual variability
of SST in the East Sea and Kuroshio Extension region. Downscaling with a CMIP5 RCP simulation
data, the RCCM projects a SST change in the seas around Korea larger than the ocean-only model and
smaller than the one-way coupled model. These results imply that the air-sea interaction has a
considerable effect on climate on a regional scale.