Forcing options (ocean-only mode)

Presently, POP includes routines for specifying the surface forcing for the velocity, pressure, temperature and salinity as well as interior forcing for temperature and salinity. While it is impossible to anticipate every kind of forcing a user might want, the routines have been constructed so that it should be relatively easy to add new types of forcing by using existing types as a template. In the following sections, these abbreviations apply:

ws: wind stress; surface forcing for the horizontal velocity field

shf: surface heat flux; surface forcing for the potential temperature equation

sfwf: surface fresh water flux; surface forcing for the salinity equation

ap: surface pressure forcing due to variations in the atmospheric pressure

pt_interior: interior forcing for the potential temperature equation

s_interior: interior forcing for the salinity equation

Sometimes an asterisk (*) will be used as a UNIX-like wildcard.

Each forcing category listed above has a namelist, and a set of options must be specified in each namelist. The options are:

• periodicity


• temporal interpolation method and interval


• formulation


• files containing forcing data


• units of forcing variables


• updating the forcing values

Since the options apply to several or all of the forcing categories, the options will be explained first, then the namelists for the categories will be given.