Definitions of surface fluxes and temperature tendencies in MPAS-Ocean

[inciente]

Hello,

is there any documentation that details the exact definition of temperature tendencies and surface fluxes in MPAS-Ocean? I've read the tracer equation section of the User Guide, but it's unclear how each tendency variable is related to the tracer equation.
In my case, I ran WCYCL simulations and have found the following issues:

1. temperatureTend (defined as the "time tendency of potential temperature measured as change in degrees times layerThickness per second") is always positive in some places. This would suggest runaway ocean warming, but that is not what happens in the simulations. What am I missing?
2. The sum of all surface flux variables (longWaveHeatFluxUp, shortWaveHeatFlux, sensibleHeatFlux, latentHeatFlux) has a very different magnitude to the vertical integral of 'temperatureSurfaceFluxTendency.' This is confusing, since the definition of the latter variable "potential temperature tendency due to surface fluxes" suggests that the two quantities should be the same.

Any insight would be very valuable. For reference, I'm trying to close a heat budget like done here for POP2. I saved all ocean temperature tendency variables in E3SM, but these issues are giving me a hard time.

Thanks!

[inciente]

Realized that (at least) some of my variables are being saved as snapshots, rather than time averages. Opening another thread to address that issue first.

[vanroekel]

Hello - to. your questions

1. temperatureTend is the right hand side of the temperature equation, but is not inclusive of vertical mixing. Which could explain the positive regions. Since we don't see runaway warming in simulations, the missing vertical mixing in that term seems a likely explanation
2. how do you compare the fluxes? Are you dividing the flux variables you note by rho_sw * cp? Not sure if the four variables you list are all you include, but many more matter -- snowFlux, runoff fluxes especially, but I don't recall if the latter is separated out off the top of my head.