Modeling the oceanic general circulation

This article reviews the history, formulation, and solution behavior of relatively comprehensive numerical models for the oceanic general circulation under equilibrium surface wind stress and buoyancy flux forcing. The issues of model formulation are both the customary and alternative dynamical approximations of the fundamental fluid dynamics, the parameterization of essential processes that occur on spatial and temporal scales smaller than can be resolved in model calculations, the boundary and initial conditions, the domain geometry, and the numerical algorithms. The solution features discussed here are the wind- and buoyancy-driven lateral gyres in enclosed basins, the mostly longitudinal currents near the equator and around Antarctica, the overturning circulations, the chemical property distributions, and both forced and spontaneous variabitions about the time-mean circulation, occurring with both meso- and large-scale flow structures.