Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment

The scientific goals of TOGA COARE are to describe and understand:

  1. The principal processes responsible for the coupling of the ocean and the atmosphere in the western Pacific warm pool system;

  2. The principal atmospheric processes that organize convection in the warm pool region;

  3. The oceanic response to combined buoyancy and wind stress forcing in the western Pacific warm pool region; and

  4. The multiple scale interactions that extend the oceanic and atmospheric influence of the western Pacific warm pool system to other regions and vice versa.

Collectively, the goals of TOGA COARE are designed to provide an understanding of the role of the warm pool regions of the tropics in the mean and transient state of the tropical ocean-atmosphere system.

Goal 1 is of the highest priority, as it speaks directly to the coupling of the ocean and atmosphere in the warm pool itself. This goal will lead to improved parameterizations of heat and fresh water fluxes between ocean and atmosphere. These are required for better performance of short and long-term oceanic and coupled atmospheric and oceanic climate prediction models.

Goals 2 and 3 are of equal priority, though it is recognized that the atmosphere controls the interfacial fluxes to a greater degree than the ocean in this region. These goals address the atmospheric and oceanic processes which extend the interfacial fluxes into the interior of each fluid locally.

Goal 4 is important for placing the western Pacific air-sea interaction in general, and COARE specifically, firmly in the context of TOGA.

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