Improving the simulation of landfast ice by combining tensile strength and a parameterization for grounded ridges

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
• Main Authors: Lemieux, Jean-François, Dupont, Frédéric, Blain, Philippe, Roy, François, Smith, Gregory C., Flato, Gregory M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: AGU Publications 2016
• Subjects: 4505 Glaciologie; 4600 Océanographie; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Kara Sea; laptev; Laptev Sea; Sea ice; Alaska
• Online Access: https://publications.polymtl.ca/4997/; https://publications.polymtl.ca/4997/1/2016_Lemieux_Improving_simulation_landfast_ice_combining.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/2016jc012006

ABSTRACT: In some coastal regions of the Arctic Ocean, grounded ice ridges contribute to stabilizing andmaintaining a landfast ice cover. Recently, a grounding scheme representing this effect on sea ice dynamicswas introduced and tested in a viscous-plastic sea ice model. This grounding scheme, based on a basalstress parameterization, improves the simulation of landfast ice in many regions such as in the East SiberianSea, the Laptev Sea, and along the coast of Alaska. Nevertheless, in some regions like the Kara Sea, the areaof landfast ice is systematically underestimated. This indicates that another mechanism such as ice archingis at play for maintaining the ice cover fast. To address this problem, the combination of the basal stressparameterization and tensile strength is investigated using a 0.258Pan-Arctic CICE-NEMO configuration.Both uniaxial and isotropic tensile strengths notably improve the simulation of landfast ice in the Kara Seabut also in the Laptev Sea. However, the simulated landfast ice season for the Kara Sea is too short com-pared to observations. This is especially obvious for the onset of the landfast ice season which systematical-ly occurs later in the model and with a slower build up. This suggests that improvements to the sea icethermodynamics could reduce these discrepancies with the data. Key Points - A grounding scheme is not enough to simulate landfast ice in Pan-Arctic simulations; - Both uniaxial and isotropic tensile strengths notably improve the simulation of landfast ice in deep coastal regions; - Simulated landfast ice season in the Kara Sea is still too short suggesting that thermodynamics should be improved.