A Comparison of Sea Ice Model Results Using Three Different Wind Forcing Fields

• Main Author: Tucker,Walter B , III
• Other Authors: COLD REGIONS RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING LAB HANOVER NH
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1983
• Subjects: Meteorology; Snow; Ice and Permafrost; *Sea ice; *Wind; Greenland Sea; Greenland; Coastal regions; Barometric pressure; Motion; Transport; Accumulation; Mathematical models; Wind forcing; PE61102A; AST24; WU003; Arctic; Arctic Basin; East Greenland; Ice; permafrost; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA134462; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA134462

A sea ice model was applied to the East Greenland Sea to examine a 60-day ice advance period beginning 1 October 1979. This investigation compares model results using driving geostrophic wind fields derived from three sources. Winds calculated from sea-level pressures obtained from the National Weather Service's operational analysis system resulted in strong velocities concentrated in a narrow band adjacent to the Greenland coast, with moderate velocities elsewhere. The model showed excessive ice transport and thickness build-ups in the coastal region. The extreme pressure gradient parallel to the coast resulted partially from a pressure reduction procedure that was applied to the terrain-following sigma coordinate system to obtain sea-level pressures. Additional sea-level pressure fields were obtained from an independent optimal interpolation analysis that merged FGGE buoys drifting in the Arctic basin with high latitude land stations and from manual digitization of the NWS hand-analyzed Northern Hemisphere Surface Charts. Modeling results using winds from both of these fields agreed favorably. (Author)