ALBERT

Description: If unstructured meshes are refined to locally represent eddy dynamics in ocean circulation models, a practical question arises on how to vary the resolution and where to deploy the refinement. We propose to use the observed sea surface height variability as the refinement criterion. We explore the utility of this method (i) in a suite of idealized experiments simulating a wind-driven double gyre flow in a stratified circular basin and (ii) in simulations of global ocean circulation performed with FESOM. Two practical approaches of mesh refinement are compared. In the first approach the uniform refinement is confined within the areas where the observed variability exceeds a given threshold. In the second one the refinement varies linearly following the observed variability. The resolution is fixed in time. For the double gyre case it is shown that the variability obtained in a high-resolution reference run can be well captured on variable-resolution meshes if they are refined where the variability is high and additionally upstream the jet separation point. The second approach of mesh refinement proves to be more beneficial in terms of improvement downstream the midlatitude jet. Similarly, in global ocean simulations the mesh refinement based on the observed variability helps the model to simulate high variability at correct locations. The refinement also leads to a reduced bias in the upper-ocean temperature

Description: Ocean bottom pressure (OBP) variability serves as a proxy of ocean mass variability, the knowledge of which is needed in geophysical applications. The question of how well it can be modeled by the present general ocean circulation models on time scales in excess of 1 day is addressed here by comparing the simulated OBP variability with the observed one. To this end, a new multiyear data set is used, obtained with an array of bottom pressure gauges deployed deeply along a transect across the Southern Ocean. We present a brief description of OBP data and show large‐scale correlations over several thousand kilometers at all time scales using daily and monthly averaged data. Annual and semiannual cycles are weak. Close to the Agulhas Retroflection, signals of up to 30 cm equivalent water height are detected. Further south, signals are mostly intermittent and noisy. It is shown that the models simulate consistent patterns of bottom pressure variability on monthly and longer scales except for areas with high mesoscale eddy activity, where high resolution is needed to capture the variability due to eddies. Furthermore, despite good agreement in the amplitude of variability, the in situ and simulated OBP show only modest correlation.

Description: Viscosity in the momentum equation is needed for numerical stability, as well as to arrest the direct cascade of enstrophy at grid scales. However, a viscous momentum closure tends to over-dissipate eddy kinetic energy. To return excessively dissipated energy to the system, the viscous closure is equipped with what is called dynamic kinetic energy backscatter. The amplitude of backscatter is based on the amount of unresolved kinetic energy (UKE). This energy is tracked through space and time via a prognostic equation. Our study proposes to add advection of UKE by the resolved flow to that equation to explicitly consider the effects of nonlocality on the subgrid energy budget. UKE can consequently be advected by the resolved flow before it is reinjected via backscatter. Furthermore, we suggest incorporating a stochastic element into the UKE equation to account for missing small-scale variability, which is not present in the purely deterministic approach. The implementations are tested on two intermediate complexity setups of the global ocean model FESOM2: an idealized channel setup and a double-gyre setup. The impacts of these additional terms are analyzed, highlighting increased eddy activity and improved flow characteristics when advection and carefully tuned, stochastic sources are incorporated into the UKE budget. Additionally, we provide diagnostics to gain further insights into the effects of scale separation between the viscous dissipation operator and the backscatter operator responsible for the energy injection. Oceanic swirls or "eddies" have a typical size of 10-100 km, which is close to the smallest scales that global ocean models commonly resolve. For physical and numerical reasons, these models require the addition of artificial terms that influence the flow near its smallest scales. Common approaches have the drawback of introducing systematic loss of kinetic energy contained in the eddies, which leads to errors that also affect the oceanic circulation on global scales. In our research, we compensate for this error by returning some of the missing energy back into the simulation, using a so-called kinetic energy backscatter scheme. In this work, we continue the development of an already existing and successful backscatter scheme, adding certain improvements to the way energy is budgeted and returned to the flow: we ensure that the local energy budget is attached to each fluid parcel as it is transported by the large-scale flow, and we also add a random forcing term that mimics unknown sources of such energy to bring its statistical properties closer to reality. We demonstrate that these modifications effectively improve the characteristics of the simulated flow. Extension of the subgrid energy equation of the kinetic energy backscatter parameterization by adding advection and a stochastic term Both additional terms improve several flow characteristics in two idealized test cases, a channel and a double-gyre Scale analysis reveals the necessity of sufficient scale separation between viscous energy dissipation and energy injection via backscatter. Key Points: - Extension of the subgrid energy equation of the kinetic energy backscatter parameterization by adding advection and a stochastic term - Both additional terms improve several flow characteristics in two idealized test cases, a channel and a double-gyre - Scale analysis reveals the necessity of sufficient scale separation between viscous energy dissipation and energy injection via backscatter

Description: Eddy driven recirculation of Atlantic Water (AW) in the Fram Strait modifies the amount of heat that reaches the Arctic Ocean, but is difficult to constrain in ocean models due to very small Rossby radius there. In this study we explore the effect of resolved eddies on the AW circulation in a locally eddy-resolving simulation of the global Finite-Element-Sea ice-Ocean-Model (FESOM) integrated for the years 2000-2009, by focusing on the seasonal cycle. An eddy-permitting simulation serves as a control run. Our results suggest that resolving local eddy dynamics is critical to realistically simulate ocean dynamics in the Fram Strait. Strong eddy activity simulated by the eddy-resolving model, with peak in winter and lower values in summer, is comparable in magnitude and seasonal cycle to observations from a long-term mooring array, whereas the eddy-permitting simulation underestimates the observed magnitude. Furthermore, a strong cold bias in the central Fram Strait present in the eddy-permitting simulation is reduced due to resolved eddy dynamics, and AW transport into the Arctic Ocean is increased with possible implications for the Arctic Ocean heat budget. Given the good agreement between the eddy-resolving model and measurements, it can help filling gaps that point-wise observations inevitably leave. For example, the path of the West Spitsbergen Current offshore branch, measured in the winter months by the mooring array, is shown to continue cyclonically around the Molloy Deep in the model, representing the major AW recirculation branch in this season.

Description: Northern Hemisphere sea ice from a Finite-Element Sea-Ice Ocean Model (FESOM) 4.5 km resolution simulation carried out by researchers from Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Germany. Concentration is shown with color; thickness is shown with shading. A global 1 degree mesh is used, with the "Arctic Ocean" locally refined to 4.5 km. South of CAA and Fram Strait the resolution is not refined in this simulation. The animation indicates that the 4.5 km model resolution helps to represent the small scale sea ice features, although much higher resolution is required to fully resolve the ice leads. The animation is created by Michael Böttinger from DKRZ (https://www.dkrz.de).

Description: The characteristics of a global set-up of the Finite-Element Sea-Ice Ocean Model under forcing of the period 1958-2004 are presented. The model set-up is designed to study the variability in the deep-water mass formation areas and was therefore regionally better resolved in the deep-water formation areas in the Labrador Sea, Greenland Sea, Weddell Sea and Ross Sea. The sea-ice model reproduces realistic sea-ice distributions and variabilities in the sea-ice extent of both hemispheres as well as sea-ice transport that compares well with observational data. Based on a comparison between model and ocean weather ship data in the North Atlantic, we observe that the vertical structure is well captured in areas with a high resolution. In our model set-up, we are able to simulate decadal ocean variability including several salinity anomaly events and corresponding fingerprint in the vertical hydrography. The ocean state of the model set-up features pronounced variability in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation as well as the associated mixed layer depth pattern in the North Atlantic deep-water formation areas.

Description: The Beaufort Gyre (BG) is the largest liquid freshwater reservoir of the Arctic Ocean. The liquid freshwater content (FWC) significantly increased in the BG in the 2000s during an anticyclonic wind regime and remained at a high level despite a transition to a more cyclonic state in the early 2010s. It is not well understood to what extent the rapid sea ice decline during this period has modified the trend and variability of the BG liquid FWC in the past decade. Our numerical simulations show that about 50% of the liquid freshwater accumulated in the BG in the 2000s can be explained by the sea ice decline caused by the Arctic atmospheric warming. Among this part of the FWC increase, 60% can be attributed to surface freshening associated with the reduction of the net sea ice thermodynamic growth rate, and 40% to changes in ocean circulation, which makes freshwater more accessible to the BG for storage. Thus, the rapid increase of the BG FWC in the 2000s was due to the concurrence of the anticyclonic wind regime and the high freshwater availability. We also find that if the Arctic sea ice had not declined, the liquid FWC in the BG would have shown a stronger decreasing tendency at the beginning of the 2010s owing to the cyclonic wind regime. From our results we argue that changes in sea ice conditions should be adequately taken into account when it comes to understanding and predicting variations of BG liquid FWC in a changing climate.

Description: Sea ice formation is accompanied by the rejection of salt which in nature tends to be mixed vertically by the formation of convective plumes. Here we analyze the influence of a salt plume parameterization (SPP) in an atmosphere-sea ice-ocean model. Two 330 years long simulations have been conducted with the AWI Climate Model. In the reference simulation, the rejected salt in the Arctic Ocean is added to the upper-most ocean layer. This approach is commonly used in climate modelling. In another experiment, employing SPP, the rejected salt is vertically redistributed within the mixed layer based on a power law profile that mimics the penetration of salt plumes. We discuss the effects of this redistribution on the simulated mean state and on atmosphere-ocean linkages associated with the intensity of deep water formation. We find that the salt plume parametrization leads to simultaneous increase of sea ice (volume and concentration) and decrease of sea surface salinity in the Arctic. The SPP considerably alters the interplay between the atmosphere and the ocean in the Nordic Seas. The parameterization modifies the ocean ventilation; however, resulting changes in temperature and salinity largely compensate each other in terms of density so that the overturning circulation is not significantly affected.

Description: Sea ice dynamics determine the drift and deformation of sea ice. Nonlinear physics, usually expressed in a viscous‐plastic rheology, makes the sea ice momentum equations notoriously difficult to solve. At increasing sea ice model resolution the nonlinearities become stronger as linear kinematic features (leads) appear in the solutions. Even the standard elastic‐viscous‐plastic (EVP) solver for sea ice dynamics, which was introduced for computational efficiency, becomes computationally very expensive, when accurate solutions are required, because the numerical stability requires very short, and hence more, subcycling time steps at high resolution. Simple modifications to the EVP solver have been shown to remove the influence of the number of subcycles on the numerical stability. At low resolution appropriate solutions can be obtained with only partial convergence based on a significantly reduced number of subcycles as long as the numerical procedure is kept stable. This previous result is extended to high resolution where linear kinematic features start to appear. The computational cost can be strongly reduced in Arctic Ocean simulations with a grid spacing of 4.5 km by using modified and adaptive EVP versions because fewer subcycles are required to simulate sea ice fields with the same characteristics as with the standard EVP.

Description: Freshwater in the Arctic Ocean is one of the key climate components. It is not well understood how the capability of the Arctic Ocean to store freshwater will develop when freshwater supplies increase in a warming climate. By using numerical experiments, we find that this capability varies with the Arctic sea ice decline nonmonotonically, with the largest capability at intermediate strength of sea ice decline. Through enhancing the ocean surface stress, sea ice decline not only accumulates freshwater toward the Amerasian Basin but also tends to reduce the amount of freshwater in both the Eurasian and Amerasian basins by increasing the occupation of Atlantic-origin water in the upper ocean. An increase in river runoff modulates the counterbalance of the two competing effects, leading to the nonmonotonic changes of the Arctic freshwater storage capability in a warming climate.