Tropical ocean-atmosphere interactions in coupled models.The case of of the Equatorial thermocline and the northwest African upwelling

The tropics show great climate variability at different timescales. Part of this variability is related to the processes that couple the ocean and the atmosphere. Surface winds drive ocean currents, while the combination of wind stress and solar heating leads to the development of the mixed layer, the topmost layer of the ocean, which is the most affected by the ocean-atmosphere coupling. This layer rests on the thermocline, an oceanic region in which the vertical temperature gradient is maximum, forming a physical barrier between the colder water of the deep ocean and the mixed layer. Understanding the dynamics of that layer and in particular its relation to wind forcings is fundamental for studying coupled atmosphere-ocean phenomena...