Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (Dec 2020)

Uncertainty Quantification of Ocean Parameterizations: Application to the K‐Profile‐Parameterization for Penetrative Convection

  • A. N. Souza,
  • G. L. Wagner,
  • A. Ramadhan,
  • B. Allen,
  • V. Churavy,
  • J. Schloss,
  • J. Campin,
  • C. Hill,
  • A. Edelman,
  • J. Marshall,
  • G. Flierl,
  • R. Ferrari

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020MS002108
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 12
pp. n/a – n/a

Abstract

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Abstract Parameterizations of unresolved turbulent processes often compromise the fidelity of large‐scale ocean models. In this work, we argue for a Bayesian approach to the refinement and evaluation of turbulence parameterizations. Using an ensemble of large eddy simulations of turbulent penetrative convection in the surface boundary layer, we demonstrate the method by estimating the uncertainty of parameters in the convective limit of the popular “K‐Profile Parameterization.” We uncover structural deficiencies and propose an alternative scaling that overcomes them.