Collaborative research: Development of a thermodynamic sea ice model with resolved melt ponds for use in linking climate model parameterizations with field data

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Abstract

Observations suggest that melt pond number and sizes on sea ice are governed mainly by the ice topography at the beginning of the melt season, and that first year ice behaves much differently from multi-year ice. Funds are provided to test this hypothesis by applying a detailed sea ice model over a limited surface area (200 m x 200 m) and examining how ponds form given different sea ice properties. Results from these experiments will be compared to field data from the SHEBA experiment and more recent observations taken off the coast of Barrow Alaska. Their goal is to use these cases to improve sea ice parameterizations in the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Climate System Model (CCSM) and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) CICE model. The general objective of this study is to better understand and model the thermodynamic processes that control the evolution of sea ice. Specific objectives are to: 1. Develop a thermodynamic sea ice model with directly resolved melt ponds, using observational data to initialize and test the model; 2. Conduct model experiments to examine how the initial ice surface topography and snow cover affect the formation of melt ponds and the overall melting rate of the ice; 3. Determine if the effects of pond size and distribution can be adequately parameterized in climate models using existing pond volume methods or if ice thickness distributions are required; and 4. Quantify the effect of current and altered climate model parameterizations on the modeled Arctic climate and climate change.