Using Arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes

Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over recent decades. Models predict that the Arctic will be nearly ice-free by mid-century, but the spread in predictions of sea ice extent is currently large. The reasons for this spread are poorly understood, partly due to a lack of observations with which the p...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: West, Alex, Collins, Mat, Blockley, Ed
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2019-113
https://gmd.copernicus.org/preprints/gmd-2019-113/
id ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:gmdd75934
record_format openpolar
spelling ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:gmdd75934 2023-05-15T14:33:56+02:00 Using Arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes West, Alex Collins, Mat Blockley, Ed 2019-08-19 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2019-113 https://gmd.copernicus.org/preprints/gmd-2019-113/ eng eng doi:10.5194/gmd-2019-113 https://gmd.copernicus.org/preprints/gmd-2019-113/ eISSN: 1991-9603 Text 2019 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2019-113 2020-07-20T16:22:42Z Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over recent decades. Models predict that the Arctic will be nearly ice-free by mid-century, but the spread in predictions of sea ice extent is currently large. The reasons for this spread are poorly understood, partly due to a lack of observations with which the processes by which Arctic atmospheric and oceanic forcing affect sea ice state can be examined. In this study, a method of estimating fluxes of top melt, top conduction, basal conduction and ocean heat flux from Arctic ice mass balance buoy elevation and temperature data is presented. The derived fluxes are used to evaluate modelled fluxes from the coupled climate model HadGEM2-ES in two densely sampled regions of the Arctic, the North Pole and Beaufort Sea. The evaluation shows the model to overestimate the magnitude of summer top melting fluxes, and winter conductive fluxes, results which are physically consistent with an independent sea ice and surface energy evaluation of the same model. Text Arctic Beaufort Sea North Pole Sea ice Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Arctic North Pole
institution Open Polar
collection Copernicus Publications: E-Journals
op_collection_id ftcopernicus
language English
description Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over recent decades. Models predict that the Arctic will be nearly ice-free by mid-century, but the spread in predictions of sea ice extent is currently large. The reasons for this spread are poorly understood, partly due to a lack of observations with which the processes by which Arctic atmospheric and oceanic forcing affect sea ice state can be examined. In this study, a method of estimating fluxes of top melt, top conduction, basal conduction and ocean heat flux from Arctic ice mass balance buoy elevation and temperature data is presented. The derived fluxes are used to evaluate modelled fluxes from the coupled climate model HadGEM2-ES in two densely sampled regions of the Arctic, the North Pole and Beaufort Sea. The evaluation shows the model to overestimate the magnitude of summer top melting fluxes, and winter conductive fluxes, results which are physically consistent with an independent sea ice and surface energy evaluation of the same model.
format Text
author West, Alex
Collins, Mat
Blockley, Ed
spellingShingle West, Alex
Collins, Mat
Blockley, Ed
Using Arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes
author_facet West, Alex
Collins, Mat
Blockley, Ed
author_sort West, Alex
title Using Arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes
title_short Using Arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes
title_full Using Arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes
title_fullStr Using Arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes
title_full_unstemmed Using Arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes
title_sort using arctic ice mass balance buoys for evaluation of modelled ice energy fluxes
publishDate 2019
url https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2019-113
https://gmd.copernicus.org/preprints/gmd-2019-113/
geographic Arctic
North Pole
geographic_facet Arctic
North Pole
genre Arctic
Beaufort Sea
North Pole
Sea ice
genre_facet Arctic
Beaufort Sea
North Pole
Sea ice
op_source eISSN: 1991-9603
op_relation doi:10.5194/gmd-2019-113
https://gmd.copernicus.org/preprints/gmd-2019-113/
op_doi https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2019-113
_version_ 1766307095816175616