Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity
Sea ice is composed of discrete units called floes. Observations show that these floes can adopt a range of sizes spanning orders of magnitude, from metres to tens of kilometres. Floe size impacts the nature and magnitude of interactions between the sea ice, ocean, and atmosphere including lateral m...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:db1505d471d44f7e83386910e34a36b8 2023-05-15T15:03:50+02:00 Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity A. W. Bateson D. L. Feltham D. Schröder Y. Wang B. Hwang J. K. Ridley Y. Aksenov 2022-06-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2565-2022 https://doaj.org/article/db1505d471d44f7e83386910e34a36b8 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/2565/2022/tc-16-2565-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-16-2565-2022 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/db1505d471d44f7e83386910e34a36b8 The Cryosphere, Vol 16, Pp 2565-2593 (2022) Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2565-2022 2022-12-30T21:31:51Z Sea ice is composed of discrete units called floes. Observations show that these floes can adopt a range of sizes spanning orders of magnitude, from metres to tens of kilometres. Floe size impacts the nature and magnitude of interactions between the sea ice, ocean, and atmosphere including lateral melt rate and momentum and heat exchange. However, large-scale geophysical sea ice models employ a continuum approach and traditionally either assume floes adopt a constant size or do not include an explicit treatment of floe size. In this study we apply novel observations to analyse two alternative approaches to modelling a floe size distribution (FSD) within the state-of-the-art CICE sea ice model. The first model considered is a prognostic floe size–thickness distribution where the shape of the distribution is an emergent feature of the model and is not assumed a priori. The second model considered, the WIPoFSD (Waves-in-Ice module and Power law Floe Size Distribution) model, assumes floe size follows a power law with a constant exponent. We introduce a parameterisation motivated by idealised models of in-plane brittle fracture to the prognostic model and demonstrate that the inclusion of this scheme enables the prognostic model to achieve a reasonable match against the novel observations for mid-sized floes (100 m–2 km). While neither FSD model results in a significant improvement in the ability of CICE to simulate pan-Arctic metrics in a stand-alone sea ice configuration, larger impacts can be seen over regional scales in sea ice concentration and thickness. We find that the prognostic model particularly enhances sea ice melt in the early melt season, whereas for the WIPoFSD model this melt increase occurs primarily during the late melt season. We then show that these differences between the two FSD models can be explained by considering the effective floe size, a metric used to characterise a given FSD. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages to these different approaches to modelling the FSD. We ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Sea ice The Cryosphere Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic The Cryosphere 16 6 2565 2593 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
spellingShingle |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 A. W. Bateson D. L. Feltham D. Schröder Y. Wang B. Hwang J. K. Ridley Y. Aksenov Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity |
topic_facet |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
description |
Sea ice is composed of discrete units called floes. Observations show that these floes can adopt a range of sizes spanning orders of magnitude, from metres to tens of kilometres. Floe size impacts the nature and magnitude of interactions between the sea ice, ocean, and atmosphere including lateral melt rate and momentum and heat exchange. However, large-scale geophysical sea ice models employ a continuum approach and traditionally either assume floes adopt a constant size or do not include an explicit treatment of floe size. In this study we apply novel observations to analyse two alternative approaches to modelling a floe size distribution (FSD) within the state-of-the-art CICE sea ice model. The first model considered is a prognostic floe size–thickness distribution where the shape of the distribution is an emergent feature of the model and is not assumed a priori. The second model considered, the WIPoFSD (Waves-in-Ice module and Power law Floe Size Distribution) model, assumes floe size follows a power law with a constant exponent. We introduce a parameterisation motivated by idealised models of in-plane brittle fracture to the prognostic model and demonstrate that the inclusion of this scheme enables the prognostic model to achieve a reasonable match against the novel observations for mid-sized floes (100 m–2 km). While neither FSD model results in a significant improvement in the ability of CICE to simulate pan-Arctic metrics in a stand-alone sea ice configuration, larger impacts can be seen over regional scales in sea ice concentration and thickness. We find that the prognostic model particularly enhances sea ice melt in the early melt season, whereas for the WIPoFSD model this melt increase occurs primarily during the late melt season. We then show that these differences between the two FSD models can be explained by considering the effective floe size, a metric used to characterise a given FSD. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages to these different approaches to modelling the FSD. We ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
A. W. Bateson D. L. Feltham D. Schröder Y. Wang B. Hwang J. K. Ridley Y. Aksenov |
author_facet |
A. W. Bateson D. L. Feltham D. Schröder Y. Wang B. Hwang J. K. Ridley Y. Aksenov |
author_sort |
A. W. Bateson |
title |
Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity |
title_short |
Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity |
title_full |
Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity |
title_fullStr |
Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity |
title_full_unstemmed |
Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity |
title_sort |
sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2565-2022 https://doaj.org/article/db1505d471d44f7e83386910e34a36b8 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Sea ice The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
Arctic Sea ice The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 16, Pp 2565-2593 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/2565/2022/tc-16-2565-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-16-2565-2022 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/db1505d471d44f7e83386910e34a36b8 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2565-2022 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
6 |
container_start_page |
2565 |
op_container_end_page |
2593 |
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1766335683958407168 |