Identification

Title

An overview of Antarctic sea ice in the Community Earth System Model version 2, part I: Analysis of the seasonal cycle in the context of sea ice thermodynamics and coupled atmosphere‐ocean‐ice processes

Abstract

We assess Antarctic sea ice climatology and variability in version 2 of the Community Earth System Model (CESM2) and compare it to that in the older CESM1 and (where appropriate) real-world observations. In CESM2, Antarctic sea ice is thinner and less extensive than in CESM1, though sea ice area is still approximately 1 million km(2) greater in CESM2 than in present-day observations. Though there is less Antarctic sea ice in CESM2, the annual cycle of ice growth and melt is more vigorous in CESM2 than in CESM1. A new mushy layer thermodynamics formulation implemented in the latest version of the Community Ice Code (CICE) in CESM2 accounts for both greater frazil ice formation in coastal polynyas and more snow-to-ice conversion near the edge of the ice pack in the new model. Greater winter ice divergence in CESM2 (relative to CESM1) is due to stronger stationary wave activity and greater wind stress curl over the ice pack. Greater wind stress curl, in turn, drives more warm water upwelling under the ice pack, thinning it and decreasing its extent. Overall, differences between Antarctic sea ice in CESM2 and CESM1 arise due to both differences in their sea ice thermodynamics formulations and differences in their coupled atmosphere-ocean states.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7zs30x0

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-03-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact