This repository contains Python implementations of three simple models for simulating the diurnal variability of sea surface temperature (SST) under given atmospheric forcing, suitable as interactive boundary conditions for idealized cloud-resolving simulations.

• DiuSST, a conceptual depth-resolved 1D model of upper ocean temperature dynamics
• ZengBeljaars05, a prognostic scheme of sea skin temperature by Zeng & Beljaars (2005)
• Slab, a simple slab ocean with proportional and integral correctors

The DiuSST model is described in Börner et al. (2024), where it is compared to the ZengBeljaars05 and Slab models based on observational data. The ZengBeljaars05 scheme has originally been presented in Zeng & Beljaars (2005). The Slab model is similar to responsive SST models used in idealized studies of tropical atmospheric convection, and is also described in Börner et al. (2024).

Learn more about the DiuSST model in this 15-minute video!

• The DiuSST model code is documented here.
• For information on running the ZengBeljaars05 and Slab models, see the docstrings in src/zengbeljaars.py and src/slab.py.
• An example notebook to run DiuSST is provided in docs/run_diusst.ipynb.

The MOCE-5 cruise observations used to calibrate the DiuSST model in Börner et al. (2024) is stored in input_data/moce5/moce5_dataset.cdf as a netCDF file. The raw data is also contained in the folder input_data/moce5/.

This work has been conducted within the Atmospheric Complexity Group at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Collaborators: Romain Fiévet, Jan O. Haerter

We gratefully acknowledge Peter Minnett for providing meteorological and oceanographic data sets from the MOCE-5 cruise contained in this repository. The development and deployment of the instruments used during the cruise was funded by NASA.

I would further like to thank Peter Ditlevsen for co-supervising this project and Gorm G. Jensen for helpful discussions. I am thankful to Chong Jia for a helpful discussion on the cool skin scheme in ZengBeljaars05.