C43B-0390:
A New Variable Resolution Sea-ice Model

Thursday, 18 December 2014
Adrian K Turner1, Douglas Jacobsen1 and Elizabeth C Hunke2, (1)Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, United States, (2)Los Alamos National Laboratory, T-3 Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics Group, Los Alamos, NM, United States
Abstract:
We present a new sea-ice model, based on the Los Alamos CICE sea-ice model, that uses a Spherical Centroidal Voronoi Tessellation (SCVT) grid. This grid is composed of polygons with varying numbers of sides and easily allows the domain to include regions of variable resolution. The model uses the Modeling for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) modeling framework, which is currently used by the MPAS-O ocean model, and by an Atmosphere and Land ice model. The sea-ice model includs an EVP rheology, solution of the sea-ice momentum equation, advection and simple thermodynamics. In future all the column physics available in CICE will be available in this new model, which is coupled to the CESM coupler and will be the sea-ice component of the Department of Energy ACME coupled climate model.