The effects of assimilating a sub-grid-scale sea ice thickness distribution in a new Arctic sea ice data assimilation system

In the past decade groundbreaking new satellite observations of the Arctic sea ice cover have been made, allowing researchers to understand the state of the Arctic sea ice system in greater detail than before. The derived estimates of sea ice thickness are useful but limited in time and space. In th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inThe cryosphere Vol. 17; no. 6; pp. 2509 - 2532
Main Authors Williams, Nicholas, Byrne, Nicholas, Feltham, Daniel, Van Leeuwen, Peter Jan, Bannister, Ross, Schroeder, David, Ridout, Andrew, Nerger, Lars
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Katlenburg-Lindau Copernicus GmbH 27.06.2023
Copernicus Publications
Subjects
Analysis
Archipelagoes
Arctic observations
Arctic sea ice
Climate change
Data assimilation
Data collection
Distribution
Estimates
Ice
Ice cover
Ice models
Ice thickness
Kalman filters
Laboratories
Modelling
Radiation
Rheology
Satellite observation
Sea ice
Sea ice concentrations
Sea ice data
Sea ice models
Sea ice thickness
Thickness
Arctic region
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:In the past decade groundbreaking new satellite observations of the Arctic sea ice cover have been made, allowing researchers to understand the state of the Arctic sea ice system in greater detail than before. The derived estimates of sea ice thickness are useful but limited in time and space. In this study the first results of a new sea ice data assimilation system are presented. Observations assimilated (in various combinations) are monthly mean sea ice thickness and monthly mean sea ice thickness distribution from CryoSat-2 and NASA daily Bootstrap sea ice concentration. This system couples the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling's (CPOM) version of the Los Alamos Sea Ice Model (CICE) to the localised ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) from the Parallel Data Assimilation Framework (PDAF) library. The impact of assimilating a sub-grid-scale sea ice thickness distribution is of particular novelty. The sub-grid-scale sea ice thickness distribution is a fundamental component of sea ice models, playing a vital role in the dynamical and thermodynamical processes, yet very little is known of its true state in the Arctic.
ISSN:1994-0424
1994-0416
1994-0424
1994-0416
DOI:10.5194/tc-17-2509-2023