Improved ice thickness in a coupled ice-ocean modeling system initialized with CryoSat-2
Abstract
CryoSat-2 sea ice thickness products derived from waveform fitting and waveform tracking techniques are used to initialize a coupled ice-ocean modeling system. A series of hindcast studies are performed for the period of March 14, 2014 - September 30, 2015 using the operational U.S. Navy's Arctic Cap Nowcast/Forecast System. Comparisons against moored upward looking sonar, drifting ice mass balance buoy, and NASA Operation IceBridge ice thickness data show that the modeling system exhibits greatly reduced bias using the satellite-derived ice thickness data versus the operational model run without this data. The model initialized with CryoSat-2 ice thickness exhibits skill in ice thickness for the initial period of up to 6 months. Significant improvements in ice thickness are found over multi-year ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. An ice drift comparison using the drifter data from the International Arctic Buoy program reveals little change in ice velocity statistics for the Pan Arctic region; however a 25% improvement is seen for the period of June - November, 2014 in the Bering/Beaufort/Chukchi Seas. This is the U.S. Navy's first attempt to run a sea ice forecast system initialized with remotely-sensed ice thickness; suggesting that it shows much promise for operational sea ice modeling in the future as new sensor data becomes available.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFM.C23E..05A
- Keywords:
-
- 0750 Sea ice;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 0766 Thermodynamics;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 0774 Dynamics;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 0798 Modeling;
- CRYOSPHERE