Diagnosing the entropy budget of a climate model

Abstract

A general circulation model (GCM) of intermediate complexity (Planet Simulator) is subjected to an analysis of the entropy budget and its sensitivity. The entropy production is computed directly based on temperature and temperature tendencies and estimated indirectly based on boundary fluxes. For indirect estimates, the model shows reasonably good agreement with observations. The direct computation indicates deficits of the indirect measures, as they, for example, overestimate the material entropy production (that is, the production by turbulent fluxes). Sensitivity analyses of entropy production are provided, which, depending on changing parameters, hint to a possible applicability of maximum entropy production (MEP) under the constrained dynamics of a complex GCM.