Sensitivity study of a dynamic thermodynamic sea ice model
- McGill Univ., Montreal, Quebec (Canada)
A numerical simulation of the seasonal sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean and the Greenland, Iceland, and Norwegian seas is presented. The sea ice model is extracted from Oberhuber's (1990) coupled sea ice-mixed layer-isopycnal general circulation model and is written in spherical coordinates. The advantage of such a model over previous sea ice models is that it can be easily coupled to either global atmospheric or ocean general circulation models written in spherical coordinates. In this model, the thermodynamics are a modification of that of Parkinson and Washington, while the dynamics use the full Hibler viscous-plastic rheology. Monthly thermodynamic and dynamic forcing fields for the atmosphere and ocean are specified. The simulations of the seasonal cycle of ice thickness, compactness, and velocity, for a control set of parameters, compare favorably with the known seasonal characteristics of these fields. A sensitivity study of the control simulation of the seasonal sea ice cover is presented. The sensitivity runs are carried out under three different themes, namely, numerical conditions, parameter values, and physical processes. This last theme refers to experiments in which physical processes are either newly added or completely removed from the model. Approximately 80 sensitivity runs have been performed in which a change from the control run environment has been implemented. Comparisons have been made between the control run and a particular sensitivity run based on time series of the seasonal cycle of the domain-averaged ice thickness, compactness, areal coverage, and kinetic energy. In addition, spatially varying fields of ice thickness, compactness, velocity, and surface temperature for each season are presented for selected experiments. A brief description and discussion of the more interesting experiments are presented. The simulation of the seasonal cycle of Arctic sea ice cover is shown to be robust. 31 refs., 20 figs., 5 tabs.
- OSTI ID:
- 7063861
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States), Vol. 98:C2; ISSN 0148-0227
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
CLIMATIC CHANGE
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
ICE
SEAS
AIR-WATER INTERACTIONS
ARCTIC OCEAN
CLIMATES
CONTROL
COORDINATES
DYNAMICS
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ENVIRONMENT
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
KINETIC ENERGY
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
RHEOLOGY
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
SENSITIVITY
SIMULATION
THERMODYNAMICS
THICKNESS
VELOCITY
DIMENSIONS
ENERGY
EVALUATION
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICS
MECHANICS
SURFACE WATERS
VARIATIONS
540310* - Environment
Aquatic- Basic Studies- (1990-)
540110