Southern Weddell Sea surface freshwater flux modulated by icescape and atmospheric forcing

• Main Authors: Štulić, Lukrecia, Timmermann, Ralph, Paul, Stephan, Zentek, Rolf, Heinemann, Günther, Kanzow, Torsten
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2023
• Subjects: article; Verlagsveröffentlichung; Brunt Ice Shelf; Ronne Ice Shelf; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Filchner Ronne Ice Shelf; Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf; Ice Shelf; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-690; https://noa.gwlb.de/receive/cop_mods_00065986; https://noa.gwlb.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/cop_derivate_00064490/egusphere-2023-690.pdf; https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-2023-690/egusphere-2023-690.pdf

Sea-ice formation dominates surface salt forcing in the southern Weddell Sea. Brine rejected in the process of sea-ice production results in the production of High Salinity Shelf Water (HSSW) that feeds the global overturning circulation and fuels the basal melt of the adjacent ice shelf. The strongest sea-ice production rates are found in coastal polynyas, where steady offshore winds promote divergent ice movement during the freezing season. The position of fast-ice areas and the presence of grounded icebergs (icescape) can influence the formation of polynyas and therefore impact sea-ice production. We use the Finite Element Sea ice–ice shelf–Ocean Model (FESOM) forced by output from the regional atmospheric model COSMO-CLM (CCLM) with 14 km horizontal resolution to investigate the role of polynyas for the surface freshwater flux of the southern Weddell Sea (2002–2017). The representation of the icescape in our model is included by prescribing the position, shape, and temporal evolution of a largely immobile ice mélange that was forming between the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (FRIS) and a major grounded iceberg, as determined from MODIS satellite data on a monthly basis. We find that 70 % of the ice produced on the continental shelf of the southern Weddell Sea is exported from the region. While coastal polynyas cover 2 % of the continental shelf area, sea-ice production within the coastal polynyas accounts for 17 % of the overall annual sea-ice production (1509 km3). The largest contributions come from the Ronne Ice Shelf and Brunt Ice Shelf polynyas, and polynyas associated with the ice mélange. Furthermore, we investigate the sensitivity of the polynya-based ice production to the i) treatment of the icescape and ii) regional atmospheric forcing. Although large-scale atmospheric fields determine the sea-ice production outside polynyas, both the treatment of the icescape and the regional atmospheric forcing are important for the regional patterns of sea-ice production in polynyas. The representation of the ice ...