A new snow thermodynamic scheme for large-scale sea-ice models

This paper assesses the capabilities of a new one-dimensional snow scheme developed for the thermodynamic component of the Louvain-la-Neuve sea-Ice Model (LIM). The model is validated at Point Barrow, Alaska, and at Ice Station POLarstern (ISPOL) in the western Weddell Sea, Southern Ocean. The new s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of Glaciology
Main Authors: Lecomte, Olivier, Fichefet, Thierry, Vancoppenolle, Martin, Nicolaus, Marcel
Other Authors: UCL - SC/SC - Faculté des sciences, UCL - SST/ELI - Earth and Life Institute
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2011
Subjects:
1443
Southern Ocean
Weddell
Weddell Sea
Annals of Glaciology
Barrow
Point Barrow
Sea ice
Alaska
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/71056
https://doi.org/10.3189/172756411795931453
Description
Summary:This paper assesses the capabilities of a new one-dimensional snow scheme developed for the thermodynamic component of the Louvain-la-Neuve sea-Ice Model (LIM). The model is validated at Point Barrow, Alaska, and at Ice Station POLarstern (ISPOL) in the western Weddell Sea, Southern Ocean. The new snow thermodynamic scheme leads to better snow internal temperature profiles, with a set-up-dependent increase in the correlation between simulated and observed temperature profiles. On average over all runs, these correlations are 27%better with the six-layer configuration. The model’s ability to reproduce observed temperatures improves with the number of snow layers, but stabilizes after a threshold layer number is reached. The lowest and highest values for this threshold are 3 (at Point Barrow) and 6 (at ISPOL), respectively. Overall, the improvement of the model’s ability to simulate sea-ice thickness is not as significant as for snow temperature, probably because of the rather crude representation of the snow stratigraphy in the model

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