Accession Number:

ADA289050

Title:

Study of the Response of a Three-Dimensional Coupled !ce-Ocean Model to Daily Varying Atmosphenc Forcing.

Descriptive Note:

Final rept.,

Corporate Author:

NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC

Personal Author(s):

• Riedlinger, Shelley K.
• Preller, Ruth H.

Report Date:

1994-10-28

Pagination or Media Count:

31.0

Abstract:

The Naval Research Laboratory developed a coupled ice-ocean model that simulates ice-ocean interactions in response to atmospheric forcing. This model couples the U.S. Navys Polar Ice Prediction System ice model, which is based on the Hibler ice model, to a diagnostic version of the Bryan-Cox three-dimensional ocean circulation model. A 6-yr simulation was performed using daily atmospheric data from the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Centers Naval Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System NOGAPS for the years 1986 through 1991. Interannual variability in most NOGAPS fields was large. Ice thickness and ice concentration changes responded directly to fluctuations in surface forcing fields. The thinnest ice of the simulation occurred in 1989, 1990, and 1991. In 1990 and 1991, the surface air temperatures were warm compared to the other years, but in 1989 the net longwave radiation from NOGAPS was anomalously large in the summer. In the summer, solar and sensible heat fluxes are the strongest forcing fields, and they add heat into the ice-ocean system causing ice to melt. In the fall, solar heating diminished and the combination of sensible plus latent fluxes, along with longwave radiation, caused a dramatic cooling that resulted in ice growth. In the winter, the sensible heat flux added heat into the system, but the combination of latent heat flux and longwave cooling dominated the result was further ice growth. Winds have a pronounced effect on ice growthmelt by directly altering the sensible and latent heat fluxes and by indirectly affecting all heat fluxes by altering the distiibution of ice cover and open water. Ice advection may account for more than half of the change in ice thickness in any given month when the winds are strong.

Descriptors:

• *SEA ICE
• *OCEAN MODELS
• COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
• OCEAN CURRENTS
• OCEAN SURFACE
• PREDICTIONS
• ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE
• NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
• ICE FORMATION
• METEOROLOGICAL DATA
• THREE DIMENSIONAL
• OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA
• SEASONAL VARIATIONS
• LATENT HEAT
• CLIMATE
• AIR WATER INTERACTIONS
• HEAT FLUX
• SURFACE TEMPERATURE
• MARINE METEOROLOGY
• GEOSTROPHIC WIND
• DAILY OCCURRENCE
• ADVECTION
• SOLAR HEATING
• OPEN WATER

Subject Categories:

• Physical and Dynamic Oceanography
• Snow, Ice and Permafrost
• Meteorology
• Computer Programming and Software

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE