Effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state
Many modern sea ice models used in global climate models represent the subgrid-scale heterogeneity in sea ice thickness with an ice thickness distribution (ITD), which improves model realism by representing the significant impact of the high spatial heterogeneity of sea ice thickness on thermodynami...
Published in: | Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans |
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Language: | English |
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2022
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019044 |
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ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_25781 2023-05-15T13:59:17+02:00 Effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state Smith, Madison M. (author) Holland, Marika M. (author) Petty, Alek A. (author) Light, Bonnie (author) Bailey, David A. (author) 2022-10 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019044 en eng Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans--JGR Oceans--2169-9275--2169-9291 articles:25781 doi:10.1029/2022JC019044 ark:/85065/d7j38xc8 Copyright 2022 American Geophysical Union (AGU). article Text 2022 ftncar https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019044 2023-04-10T18:09:05Z Many modern sea ice models used in global climate models represent the subgrid-scale heterogeneity in sea ice thickness with an ice thickness distribution (ITD), which improves model realism by representing the significant impact of the high spatial heterogeneity of sea ice thickness on thermodynamic and dynamic processes. Most models default to five thickness categories. However, little has been done to explore the effects of the resolution of this distribution (number of categories) on sea-ice feedbacks in a coupled model framework and resulting representation of the sea ice mean state. Here, we explore this using sensitivity experiments in CESM2 with the standard 5 ice thickness categories and 15 ice thickness categories. Increasing the resolution of the ITD in a run with preindustrial climate forcing results in substantially thicker Arctic sea ice year-round. Analyses show that this is a result of the ITD influence on ice strength. With 15 ITD categories, weaker ice occurs for the same average thickness, resulting in a higher fraction of ridged sea ice. In contrast, the higher resolution of thin ice categories results in enhanced heat conduction and bottom growth and leads to only somewhat increased winter Antarctic sea ice volume. The spatial resolution of the ICESat-2 satellite mission provides a new opportunity to compare model outputs with observations of seasonal evolution of the ITD in the Arctic (ICESat-2; 2018-2021). Comparisons highlight significant differences from the ITD modeled with both runs over this period, likely pointing to underlying issues contributing to the representation of average thickness. 1852977 1724748 Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Sea ice OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Antarctic Arctic Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 127 10 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
description |
Many modern sea ice models used in global climate models represent the subgrid-scale heterogeneity in sea ice thickness with an ice thickness distribution (ITD), which improves model realism by representing the significant impact of the high spatial heterogeneity of sea ice thickness on thermodynamic and dynamic processes. Most models default to five thickness categories. However, little has been done to explore the effects of the resolution of this distribution (number of categories) on sea-ice feedbacks in a coupled model framework and resulting representation of the sea ice mean state. Here, we explore this using sensitivity experiments in CESM2 with the standard 5 ice thickness categories and 15 ice thickness categories. Increasing the resolution of the ITD in a run with preindustrial climate forcing results in substantially thicker Arctic sea ice year-round. Analyses show that this is a result of the ITD influence on ice strength. With 15 ITD categories, weaker ice occurs for the same average thickness, resulting in a higher fraction of ridged sea ice. In contrast, the higher resolution of thin ice categories results in enhanced heat conduction and bottom growth and leads to only somewhat increased winter Antarctic sea ice volume. The spatial resolution of the ICESat-2 satellite mission provides a new opportunity to compare model outputs with observations of seasonal evolution of the ITD in the Arctic (ICESat-2; 2018-2021). Comparisons highlight significant differences from the ITD modeled with both runs over this period, likely pointing to underlying issues contributing to the representation of average thickness. 1852977 1724748 |
author2 |
Smith, Madison M. (author) Holland, Marika M. (author) Petty, Alek A. (author) Light, Bonnie (author) Bailey, David A. (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
Effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state |
spellingShingle |
Effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state |
title_short |
Effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state |
title_full |
Effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state |
title_fullStr |
Effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state |
title_full_unstemmed |
Effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice mean state |
title_sort |
effects of increasing the category resolution of the sea ice thickness distribution in a coupled climate model on arctic and antarctic sea ice mean state |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019044 |
geographic |
Antarctic Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Arctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Sea ice |
op_relation |
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans--JGR Oceans--2169-9275--2169-9291 articles:25781 doi:10.1029/2022JC019044 ark:/85065/d7j38xc8 |
op_rights |
Copyright 2022 American Geophysical Union (AGU). |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019044 |
container_title |
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans |
container_volume |
127 |
container_issue |
10 |
_version_ |
1766267821050822656 |