19.1.1.1 SST outside Ocean domain

There is a complication if the ocean is of limited extent: SST must be prescribed outside the ocean domain as a surface boundary condition for the atmosphere on the A $_{i^\prime,j^\prime}$ grid. To accommodate this, the ocean domain must be known in terms of A $_{i^\prime,j^\prime}$ and a buffer or blending zone must be established. Within this zone, SST from mom is blended with the prescribed SST outside the ocean domain as indicated in Figure 19.3. As a simplification, SST is prescribed outside the domain of mom as a constant which is obviously unrealistic and should be prescribed by the researcher as a function of space and time appropriately along with the width of the blending zone. SST within the blending zone is a linear interpolation between the two regions.