Benefits from representing snow properties and related processes in coupled ocean–sea ice models

• Published in: Ocean Modelling
• Main Authors: Lecomte, Olivier, Fichefet, Thierry, Massonnet, François, Vancoppenolle, Martin
• Other Authors: UCL - SST/ELI/ELIC - Earth & Climate
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc. 2015
• Subjects: Snow; Sea ice; Model; Arctic; Antarctic; CISM : CECI; 1443; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/157622; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2014.11.005

Several large-scale sea ice simulations are performed over the last three decades using a coupled ocean– sea ice model under the same experimental setup but partly modifying the representation of snow physics in the model. The inter-simulation spread analysis yields that the simulated multi-year ice is sensitive to such changes while the seasonal sea ice, is rather dominantly driven by the external oceanic and atmospheric forcings. In the context of a thinning Arctic sea ice cover, those findings suggest that including snow processes in large-scale sea ice models is beneficial, if not necessary, to predict the timing of the Arctic multi-year ice disappearance, whereas the operational forecasting of first-year ice extent using fully coupled models will likely require improvement to the oceanic and atmospheric components themselves.