The Hamburg Sea-Ice Model

• Main Authors: Stössel, Achim, Owens, W.Brechner
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: World Data Center for Climate (WDCC) 2009
• Subjects: Climate; Southern Ocean; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.2312/wdcc/dkrz_report_no03; http://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/ui/Compact.jsp?acronym=DKRZ_Report_No03

The general purpose of the model is to simulate sea ice dynamically as well as thermodynamically. Pure sea-ice models are generally highly dependent on the specified atmospheric and oceanic forcing, especially on the winds and the vertical oceanic heat flux. In order to reduce these dependencies, the sea-ice [SI] model was extended to optionally include a prognostic oceanic mixed layer [OML], a diagnostic atmospheric surface layer [ASL] and/or a diagnostic atmospheric boundary layer [ABL], thus shifting the forcing levels further away from the surface (i.e. from the sea ice) and simultaneously providing a modification of the forcing considering boundary-layer adjustments to the instantaneous sea-ice conditions given by the SI model. A further major extension of the model is the (optional) employment of a prognostic snow layer. The special application characterising the present code was sea-ice simulation in the Southern Ocean, employing a spherical, circumpolar grid with a resolution of 2.5 o in latitude and 5 o in longitude, extending from 50 o S to 80 o S and using a daily time step.