Sensitivity study of subgrid scale ocean mixing under sea ice using a two-column ocean grid in climate model CESM

Abstract

Brine drainage from sea ice formation plays a critical role in ocean mixing and seasonal variations of halocline in polar oceans. The horizontal scale of brine drainage and its induced convection is much smaller than a climate model grid and a model tends to produce false ocean mixing when brine drainage is averaged over a grid cell. A two-column ocean grid (TCOG) scheme was implemented in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) using coupled sea ice-ocean model setting to explicitly solve the different vertical mixing in the two sub-columns of one model grid with and without brine rejection. The fraction of grid with brine rejection was tested to be equal to the lead fraction or a small constant number in a series of sensitivity model runs forced by the same atmospheric data from 1978 to 2009. The model results were compared to observations from 29 ice tethered profilers (ITP) in the Arctic Ocean Basin from 2004 to 2009. Compared with the control run using a regular ocean grid, the TCOG simulations showed consistent reduction of model errors in salinity and mixed layer depth (MLD). The model using a small constant fraction grid for brine rejection was found to produce the best model comparison with observations, indicating that the horizontal scale of the brine drainage is very small compared to the sea ice cover and even smaller than the lead fraction. Comparable to models using brine rejection parameterization schemes, TCOG achieved more improvements in salinity but similar in MLD.

Keywords

climate model / sea ice / mixed-layer depth / ocean mixing / brine drainage

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