Biases of the Arctic Climate in a Regional Ocean-Sea Ice-Atmosphere Coupled Model: An Annual Validation

Abstract:

The Coupling of three model components, WRF/PCE (polar climate extension version of weather research and forecasting model (WRF)), ROMS (regional ocean modeling system), and CICE (community ice code), has been implemented, and the regional atmosphere-ocean-sea ice coupled model named WRF/PCE-ROMS-CICE has been validated against ERA-interim reanalysis data sets for 1989. To better understand the reasons that generate model biases, the WRF/PCE-ROMS-CICE results were compared with those of its components, the WRF/PCE and the ROMS-CICE. There are cold biases in surface air temperature (SAT) over the Arctic Ocean, which contribute to the sea ice concentration (SIC) and sea surface temperature (SST) biases in the results of the WRF/PCE-ROMS-CICE. The cold SAT biases also appear in results of the atmospheric component with a mild temperature in winter and similar temperature in summer. Compared to results from the WRF/PCE, due to influences of different distributions of the SIC and the SST and inclusion of interactions of air-sea-sea ice in the WRF/PCE-ROMS-CICE, the simulated SAT has new features. These influences also lead to apparent differences at higher levels of the atmosphere, which can be thought as responses to biases in the SST and sea ice extent. There are similar atmospheric responses to sea ice biases at 700 and 500 hPa, and the strength of response weakens, with a height in January. The atmospheric responses in July reach up to 200 hPa. There are surplus sea ice extents in the Greenland Sea, the Barents Sea, the Davis Strait and the Chukchi Sea, resulting from the ROMS-CICE in winter and in the Beaufort Sea, the Chukchi Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea in summer. These differences in the SIC distribution can all be explained by those in the SST distributions. These features in the simulated SST and SIC from ROMS-CICE also appear in the WRF/PCE-ROMS-CICE. It is shown that the performance of the WRF/PCE-ROMS-CICE is determined to a large extent by its components, the WRF/PCE and the ROMS-CICE.