Final Report: Modeling coupled ice sheet-ocean interactions in the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) and in DOE Earth System Models
Ice sheet-ocean interactions are involved in a potential climate tipping point in the climate system. Weakening of dynamical ocean barriers that currently hold warmer waters off the Antarctic continental shelf could lead to warming under Antarctica’s largest ice shelves, causing as much as a hundredfold increase in sub-ice-shelf melting. Increased ice-sheet melting could trigger dynamical instabilities in the ice sheet itself if sufficient buttressing from ice shelves is lost. This project developed and tested several modeling capabilities needed to investigate these phenomena. In collaboration with a number of international groups, notably the climate modeling group at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the following capabilities were added to the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) and its ocean component (the Model for Prediction Across Scales Ocean, MPAS-Ocean): 1) a new vertical coordinate appropriate for ice-shelf cavities; 2) an initialization procedure appropriate for damping waves from imbalances in ocean pressure and that of the overlying ice shelf; 3) A suite of idealized test cases related to ice shelf-ocean interactions; 4) A set of diagnostics for tracking freshwater fluxes and heat budgets from ice-shelf melting; 5) infrastructure for computing ice sheet-ocean fluxes in the E3SM coupler; and 6) A set of analysis and visualization tools for E3SM ocean and sea-ice validation with a particular focus on Antarctic and Southern Ocean climate. Additionally, the project included participation and leadership in a number of international model intercomparison projects (MIPs). Most notably, the PI was a co-chair of the Marine Ice Sheet-Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (MISOMIP), designing the experiment, coordinating participation in the MIP and performing the bulk of the analysis. Although the project was cut short when the PI accepted a staff scientist position at LANL, the project played a role in seven publications and has segued smoothly into ongoing Department of Energy projects in the “ecosystem” surrounding E3SM.
- Research Organization:
- Potsdam Inst. for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam (Germany)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0013038
- OSTI ID:
- 1490084
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-PIK-13038
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Experimental design for three interrelated marine ice sheet and ocean model intercomparison projects: MISMIP v. 3 (MISMIP +), ISOMIP v. 2 (ISOMIP +) and MISOMIP v. 1 (MISOMIP1)
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journal | January 2016 |
Developments in Simulating and Parameterizing Interactions Between the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic Ice Sheet
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journal | October 2017 |
Modeling Ice Shelf/Ocean Interaction in Antarctica: A Review
|
journal | December 2016 |
The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets under 1.5 °C global warming
|
journal | November 2018 |
Antarctic sub-shelf melt rates via PICO
|
journal | January 2018 |
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