Hindcast simulation with a hydrodynamic sea shelf model from 1948 till 2007 -- a model study.

A challenging question is whether there is a systematic climate change in the North Sea and which physical processes play an important role. To study this numerical model runs are done for the period of 1948 till 2007. For the simulations the 3-dimensional barocline shelf sea model HAMSOM with a spatial resolution of 20' x 12' and 19 levels is applied. The simulation is forced with the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 1 data set which included air temperature, humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, sea level pressure and wind components. The boundary conditions for the open seas are from a climatological data set (Levitus, 1982) and also eight partial tides are included. Model results show good agreement with long time measurements. Results and trends for temperature and heat content will be discussed.