Abstract
A regional Arctic Ocean configuration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology General Circulation Model (MITgcm) is applied to simulate the Arctic sea ice from 1991 to 2012. The simulations are evaluated by comparing them with observations from different sources. The results show that MITgcm can reproduce the interannual and seasonal variability of the sea-ice extent, but underestimates the trend in sea-ice extent, especially in September. The ice concentration and thickness distributions are comparable to those from the observations, with most deviations within the observational uncertainties and less than 0.5 m, respectively. The simulated sea-ice extents are better correlated with observations in September, with a correlation coefficient of 0.95, than in March, with a correlation coefficient of 0.83. However, the distributions of sea-ice concentration are better simulated in March, with higher pattern correlation coefficients (0.98) than in September. When the model underestimates the atmospheric influence on the sea-ice evolution in March, deviations in the sea-ice concentration arise at the ice edges and are higher than those in September. In contrast, when the model underestimates the oceanic boundaries’ influence on the September sea-ice evolution, disagreements in the distribution of the sea-ice concentration and its trend are found over most marginal seas in the Arctic Ocean. The uncertainties of the model, whereby it fails to incorporate the atmospheric information in March and oceanic information in September, contribute to varying model errors with the seasons.
摘要
本文应用了一个区域的MITgcm(麻省理工学院通用环流模式)海洋-海冰耦合模式模拟了1991–2012年北极海冰的长时期变化,并通过和不同来源的卫星观测对比评估了不同时间尺度的海冰模拟。结果表明,MITgcm能很好地模拟出观测的北极海冰范围的年际和季节变化,但是模式总体低估了海冰范围的减少趋势(以九月最显著)。在空间分布上,模式模拟的海冰密集度的误差处于观测的不确定性范围内,海冰厚度的误差集中在0.5m以下。模式模拟的九月海冰范围和观测的相关性(SCC为0.95)要高于三月海冰范围和观测的相关(SCC为0.83)。但是在三月,海冰密集度分布模拟效果要好于九月。进一步对误差的解析表明,当模式低估三月大气强迫对海冰模拟影响时,三月海冰密集度偏差主要出现在海冰边缘,且数值明显高于九月。而当模式低估了海洋边界对九月海冰模拟影响时,九月海冰密集度及其变化趋势的误差出现在北冰洋大部分边缘海域。这一结果揭示了海冰模拟的模式误差来源存在显著的季节变化,主要是三月对大气强迫的响应不足和其九月对海洋边界条件的响应不足。
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFC1402705) the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS (Grant No. ZDBS-LY-DQC010), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41876012 and 41861144015), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB42000000)
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Article Highlights
• An Arctic sea-ice simulation from 1992 to 2012 was performed to evaluate the model deficiencies in different seasons.
• The simulation uncertainties induced by atmospheric forcing and oceanic boundaries are different for reproducing the sea-ice extent in March and September.
• An effective way to isolate the roles of seasonally varying model errors is valuable for improving sea-ice simulation and prediction.
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Zheng, F., Sun, Y., Yang, Q. et al. Evaluation of Arctic Sea-ice Cover and Thickness Simulated by MITgcm. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 38, 29–48 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-020-9223-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-020-9223-6