Evaluation of the sea ice simulation in a new coupled atmosphere-ocean climate model (HadGEM1)

• Main Authors: McLaren, AJ, Banks, HT, Durman, CF, Gregory, JM, Johns, TC, Keen, AB, Ridley, JK, Roberts, MJ, Lipscomb, WH, Connolley, WM, Laxon, SW
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION 2006
• Subjects: NORTH-ATLANTIC OSCILLATION; THICKNESS DISTRIBUTION; SURFACE-TEMPERATURE; ARCTIC-OCEAN; FRAM STRAIT; DYNAMICS; ALBEDO; VARIABILITY; FLUX; THERMODYNAMICS; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; albedo; Fram Strait; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/154932/

[ 1] A rapid increase in the variety, quality, and quantity of observations in polar regions is leading to a significant improvement in the understanding of sea ice dynamic and thermodynamic processes and their representation in global climate models. We assess the simulation of sea ice in the new Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model (HadGEM1) against the latest available observations. The HadGEM1 sea ice component uses elastic-viscous-plastic dynamics, multiple ice thickness categories, and zero-layer thermodynamics. The model evaluation is focused on the mean state of the key variables of ice concentration, thickness, velocity, and albedo. The model shows good agreement with observational data sets. The variability of the ice forced by the North Atlantic Oscillation is also found to agree with observations.