On the formulation of snow thermal conductivity in large‐scale sea ice models

• Published in: Journal of advances in modeling earth systems Vol. 5; no. 3; pp. 542 - 557
• Main Authors: Lecomte, O., Fichefet, T., Vancoppenolle, M., Domine, F., Massonnet, F., Mathiot, P., Morin, S., Barriat, P.Y.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.07.2013; American Geophysical Union
• Subjects: Arctic sea ice; Density profiles; Earth Sciences; General circulation models; Geophysics; Heat conductivity; Ice; Ice formation; Ice models; Ice thickness; Intercomparison; mass balance; Ocean models; Oceans; Parameterization; Physics; Salinity; Sciences of the Universe; Sea ice; Sea ice models; Sea ice thickness; Seasonal winds; Simulation; Snow; Snow accumulation; Snow depth; Temperature profile; Temperature profiles; Thermal conductivity; thermodynamics; Wind speed; Southern Ocean; PN, Arctic; PS, Antarctic Ocean; thermodynamics; model; mass balance; snow; sea ice
• ISSN: 1942-2466; 1942-2466
• DOI: 10.1002/jame.20039

An assessment of the performance of a state‐of‐the‐art large‐scale coupled sea ice‐ocean model, including a new snow multilayer thermodynamic scheme, is performed. Four 29 year long simulations are compared against each other and against sea ice thickness and extent observations. Each simulation uses a separate parameterization for snow thermophysical properties. The first simulation uses a constant thermal conductivity and prescribed density profiles. The second and third parameterizations use typical power‐law relationships linking thermal conductivity directly to density (prescribed as in the first simulation). The fourth parameterization is newly developed and consists of a set of two linear equations relating the snow thermal conductivity and density to the mean seasonal wind speed. Results show that simulation 1 leads to a significant overestimation of the sea ice thickness due to overestimated thermal conductivity, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. Parameterizations 2 and 4 lead to a realistic simulation of the Arctic sea ice mean state. Simulation 3 results in the underestimation of the sea ice basal growth in both hemispheres, but is partly compensated by lateral growth and snow ice formation in the Southern Hemisphere. Finally, parameterization 4 improves the simulated Snow Depth Distributions by including snow packing by wind, and shows potential for being used in future works. The intercomparison of all simulations suggests that the sea ice model is more sensitive to the snow representation in the Arctic than it is in the Southern Ocean, where the sea ice thickness is not driven by temperature profiles in the snow. Key Points A multi‐layer snow scheme was included in a sea ice model for the first time. New parameterizations of snow density and thermal conductivity are tested. Snow depth distributions are better simulated with the new parameterizations.