Evaluation of Wind Field Predictions by Atmospheric Models Over the Marmara Sea

Abstract

Data collected from meteorological stations in the Turkish Straits System (TSS) around the Marmara Sea are used to assess the performance of atmospheric models in predicting the winds. The Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) is applied using different spatial resolutions ranging between 1 km and 27 km to investigate the effect of model spatial grid resolution on the accuracy of the computed wind field. The influence of ocean dynamics on atmospheric winds also is investigated by comparing wind field predictions from a fully coupled COAMPS with those from an uncoupled (stand-alone atmospheric) COAMPS. Following an examination of the wind products, the importance of using high resolution wind forcing for ocean circulation predictions is evaluated