An Exploration of Submesoscale Eddies and Sea Ice Interations and their Implications

There are regions within the Arctic Ocean that exhibit strong buoyancy gradients and active eddy fields at a range of scales. The turbulent processes associated with these eddy fields are important drivers of ocean mixing and transport. There is a growing body of research on the importance of resolving submesoscale features, such as fronts and filaments, within ocean models to accurately represent eddy mixing and transport. However, this topic remains largely unexplored within the context of the polar oceans. Sea ice complicates matters through its interactions with the ocean surface both mechanically through surface drag and thermodynamically through melt and growth cycles. Here, MITgcm is used to investigate the influence sea ice has on submesoscale mixing and transport. A series of simulations with varied sea ice concentrations, horizontal resolutions, and forcing schemes are presented. Furthermore, an analysis is performed to diagnose the response of vertical heat transport and ocean-sea ice heat fluxes to the chosen model parameters. Preliminary results suggest that both the mechanical and submesoscale thermodynamical interactions between the ocean and sea ice have strong effects on net vertical heat transport. This work suggests a possible feedback within the ocean-sea ice system: a retreating ice cover may boost local vertical heat transport and further accelerate ice melt.