The elastic-viscous-plastic method revisited

• Published in: Ocean Modelling
• Main Authors: Bouillon, Sylvain, Fichefet, Thierry, Legat, Vincent, Madec, Gurvan
• Other Authors: Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique Georges Lemaître (UCL-ASTR), Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering Louvain (IMMC), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: CCSD 2013
• Subjects: Viscous-plastic rheology; Elastic-viscous-plastic; Sea ice; NEMO; [PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-GEO-PH]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; [SDU.STU.GP]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; Arctic; ice pack
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00941571; https://doi.org/10.1016/J.OCEMOD.2013.05.013

International audience In this paper, we show that one of the most widely used methods to solve the non-linear viscous-plastic (VP) sea ice rheology, the elastic-viscous-plastic (EVP) method, generates artificial linear bands of high deformation that may be confounded with real linear kinematic features observed in the Arctic ice pack. These numerical artefacts are easily filtered out by using a slightly different regularization of the internal stress. In addition, the EVP method is reinterpreted as an iterative solver and a clear distinction appears between the numerical and physical parameters. Two numerical parameters determine the stability and accuracy of the method and are adjusted to avoid the noisy ice deformation fields frequently observed with the EVP method in nearly rigid ice areas. This study also confirms the unsatisfactory numerical convergence of the EVP method and investigates the effects of the numerical parameters on sea ice deformation, internal stress and velocity fields obtained with unconverged solutions.