Evaluation of Arctic sea ice thickness simulated by Arctic Ocean Model Intercomparison Project models

Abstract

[1] Six Arctic Ocean Model Intercomparison Project model simulations are compared with estimates of sea ice thickness derived from pan-Arctic satellite freeboard measurements (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008); airborne electromagnetic measurements (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009); ice draft data from moored instruments in Fram Strait, the Greenland Sea, and the Beaufort Sea (1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) and from submarines ; and drill hole data from the Arctic basin, Laptev, and East Siberian marginal seas (1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986) and coastal stations (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009). Despite an assessment of six models that differ in numerical methods, resolution, domain, forcing, and boundary conditions, the models generally overestimate the thickness of measured ice thinner than $2 m and underestimate the thickness of ice measured thicker than about $2 m. In the regions of flat immobile landfast ice (shallow Siberian Seas with depths less than 25-30 m), the models generally overestimate both the total observed sea ice thickness and rates of September and October ice growth from observations by more than 4 times and more than one standard deviation, respectively. The models do not reproduce conditions of fast ice formation and growth. Instead, the modeled fast ice is replaced with pack ice which drifts, generating ridges of increasing ice thickness, in addition to thermodynamic ice growth. Considering all observational data sets, the better correlations and smaller differences from observations are from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II and Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System models.

Better constraints on the sea-ice state using global sea-ice data assimilation

“…Results of the model from Arctic Ocean Model Intercomparaison Project (AOMIP) also indicate similar behaviour. Johnson et al (2012) demonstrate that the models overestimate thickness of ice thinner than 2 m and underestimate the thickness of measured ice thicker than 2 m.…”

An analytical model for wind-driven Arctic summer sea ice drift

“…It is possible that the real sea ice thickness in the Arctic summer is thinner than the PIOMAS sea ice thickness. While PIOMAS simulates the Arctic sea ice thickness within a reasonable range, the model is known to generally overestimate the thickness of measured sea ice thinner than 2 m (Johnson et al, 2012;Schweiger et al, 2011). Otherwise, the vertical diffusivity K * o in August and September might be smaller than 0.028 due to surface buoyancy input resulting from sea ice melt (McPhee and Morison, 2001).…”

Small river plumes off the northeastern coast of the Black Sea under average climatic and flooding discharge conditions

“…The similar con-figuration of coupled Eulerian (Princeton Ocean Model) and Lagrangian (STRiPE) models was recently used for simulation of the delivery and fate of fluvial water and terrigenous sediments discharged by the Peinan River at the southeastern coast of the island of Taiwan under freshet and typhoon discharge conditions (Osadchiev et al, 2016) and for studying the dynamical features of the Zhuoshui and Wu river plumes located on the western coast of Taiwan (Korotenko et al, 2014). (Volodin et al, 2010) as well as for modeling the Arctic Ocean (Johnson et al, 2012) in the framework of the Arctic Ocean Model Intercomparison Project, and the South Ocean Farneti et al, 2015) and North Atlantic Ocean (Danabasoglu et al, 2016) in the framework of the Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments.…”