Abstract
This study investigates effects of three different parameterizations of vertical mixing scheme on upper ocean simulation of the East Sea, focusing on the seasonal variations of the sea surface temperature(SST) and the mixed layer depth(MLD) using an ocean general circulation model(GFDL MOM1.1). The considered vertical mixing schemes are the Laplacian scheme(L scheme) that use a constant eddy coefficient, the Mellor-Yamada scheme(MY scheme), and a new scheme(Noh scheme). The Noh scheme, a second-order turbulence closure, was developed considering recent observational evidences such as the enhancement of turbulent kinetic energy near the sea surface. During summer L scheme underestimates the SST, while MY scheme overestimates the SST, compared to climatological SST. Noh scheme produces the SST in better agreement with climatological one. During winter all schemes overestimate the SST up to $4^{\circ}C$ compared to climatological SST. Vertical profiles of the basin-mean temperature show that L scheme produces higher temperature below the thermocline than those of other schemes. The winter MLD simulated from L scheme is rather large compared to that from other schemes, but the differences in MLD during summer are not significant.