Sea Ice Rheology Experiment (SIREx): 1. Scaling and Statistical Properties of Sea-Ice Deformation Fields

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
• Main Authors: Bouchat, Amélie, Hutter, Nils, Chanut, Jérôme, Dupont, Frédéric, Dukhovskoy, Dmitry, Garric, Gilles, Lee, Younjoo J., Lemieux, Jean-François, Lique, Camille, Losch, Martin, Maslowski, Wieslaw, Myers, Paul G., Ólason, Einar, Rampal, Pierre, Rasmussen, Till, Talandier, Claude, Tremblay, Bruno, Wang, Qiang
• Other Authors: Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale (LOPS), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP ), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: sea-ice deformation; rheology; model intercomparison project; sea-ice modeling; sea-ice observations; scaling analysis; [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; Arctic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://insu.hal.science/insu-03683297; https://insu.hal.science/insu-03683297/document; https://insu.hal.science/insu-03683297/file/JGR%20Oceans%20-%202022%20-%20Bouchat%20-%20Sea%20Ice%20Rheology%20Experiment%20SIREx%201%20Scaling%20and%20Statistical%20Properties%20of%20Sea%25u2010Ice.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC017667

International audience As the sea-ice modeling community is shifting to advanced numerical frameworks, developing new sea-ice rheologies, and increasing model spatial resolution, ubiquitous deformation features in the Arctic sea ice are now being resolved by sea-ice models. Initiated at the Forum for Arctic Modeling and Observational Synthesis, the Sea Ice Rheology Experiment (SIREx) aims at evaluating state-of-the-art sea-ice models using existing and new metrics to understand how the simulated deformation fields are affected by different representations of sea-ice physics (rheology) and by model configuration. Part 1 of the SIREx analysis is concerned with evaluation of the statistical distribution and scaling properties of sea-ice deformation fields from 35 different simulations against those from the RADARSAT Geophysical Processor System (RGPS). For the first time, the viscous-plastic (and the elastic-viscous-plastic variant), elastic-anisotropic-plastic, and Maxwell-elasto-brittle rheologies are compared in a single study. We find that both plastic and brittle sea-ice rheologies have the potential to reproduce the observed RGPS deformation statistics, including multi-fractality. Model configuration (e.g., numerical convergence, atmospheric representation, spatial resolution) and physical parameterizations (e.g., ice strength parameters and ice thickness distribution) both have effects as important as the choice of sea-ice rheology on the deformation statistics. It is therefore not straightforward to attribute model performance to a specific rheological framework using current deformation metrics. In light of these results, we further evaluate the statistical properties of simulated Linear Kinematic Features in a SIREx Part 2 companion paper.