Ocean and Sea Ice and their Interactions around Greenland and the West Antarctic Peninsula in Forced Fine-Resolution Global Simulations

• Main Authors: McClean, Julie L., Gille, Sarah T., Chassignet, Eric P., Maltrud, Mathew E.
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: 58 GEOSCIENCES; 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Greenland; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelves; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1572201; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1572201; https://doi.org/10.2172/1572201

Anomalously warm ocean waters have been implicated as the cause of accelerated ablation along the margin of the Greenland ice sheet, as well as the cause of increasing basal melt rate, mass loss, and grounding line retreat of many Antarctic ice shelves. The overarching science objective of this project is to investigate how the interplay of regional processes and decadal changes in local and remote forcing impact the delivery and end member composition of waters over the continental shelves of Greenland and Antarctica. To address this goal, an existing global eddy-active ocean general circulation model (OGCM), coupled to a thermodynamic/dynamic ice model and forced with atmospheric reanalysis fluxes from 1948-2009, was analyzed to understand these processes around the continental margins of Greenland and Antarctica. This simulation did not contain a representation of ice sheet melt or resolve mesoscale eddies over these continental margins, so two new coupled OGCM/sea-ice models were constructed and analyzed to address the roles of small scale features and processes (< 5km) and freshwater flux surpluses.