Publication Date:
2013-12-31
Description:
Sea ice and snow on sea ice to a large extent determine the surface heat budget in the Arctic Ocean. In spite of the advances in modeling sea-ice thermodynamics, a good number of models still rely on simple parameterizations of the thermodynamics of ice and snow. Based on simulations with an Arctic sea-ice model coupled to an ocean general circulation model, we analyzed the impact of changing two sea-ice parameterizations: 1) the prescribed ice thickness distribution (ITD) for surface heat budget calculations, and 2) the description of the snow layer. For the former, we prescribed a realistic ITD derived from airborne electromagnetic induction sounding measurements. For the latter, two different types of parameterizations were tested: 1) snow thickness independent of the sea ice thickness below, and 2) a distribution proportional to the prescribed ITD. Our results show that changing the ITD from 7 uniform categories to 15 non-uniform categories derived from field measurements, and distributing the snow layer according to the ITD leads to an increase in average Arctic-wide ice thickness by 0.56 m and an increase by 1 m in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Canadian Basin. This increase is found to be a direct consequence of 524 km 3 extra thermodynamic growth during the months of ice formation (January, February and March). Our results emphasize that these parameterizations are a key factor in sea-ice modeling to improve the representation of the sea-ice energy balance.
Print ISSN:
0148-0227
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
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