The surface forcing inputs used in the model were
the six-hourly NCEP reanalysis data, for the years 2002
and 2003. The variables used from this meteorological
database were: winds and air temperature at 10 m and
2 m height above sea level, respectively; precipitation
rate; relative humidity; and long and short wave radiation
fluxes. The conditions used on the western,
northern, and southern open boundaries were a combination
of outward advection and radiation, together
with flow-adaptive nudging towards prescribed external
conditions (Marchesiello et al., 2001). These external
conditions were estimated using climatological
data (Levitus and Boyer, 1994; Levitus et al., 1994),
used also for initialisation.