Identification

Title

Influences of changing sea ice and snow thicknesses on simulated Arctic winter heat fluxes

Abstract

In the high-latitude Arctic, wintertime sea ice and snow insulate the relatively warmer ocean from the colder atmosphere. While the climate warms, wintertime Arctic surface heat fluxes remain dominated by the insulating effects of snow and sea ice covering the ocean until the sea ice thins enough or sea ice concentrations decrease enough to allow for direct ocean-atmosphere heat fluxes. The Community Earth System Model version 1 Large Ensemble (CESM1-LE) simulates increases in wintertime conductive heat fluxes in the ice-covered Arctic Ocean by similar to 7-11 W m(-2) by the mid-21st century, thereby driving an increased warming of the atmosphere. These increased fluxes are due to both thinning sea ice and decreasing snow on sea ice. The simulations analyzed here use a sub-grid-scale ice thickness distribution. Surface heat flux estimates calculated using grid-cell mean values of sea ice thicknesses underestimate mean heat fluxes by similar to 16 %-35 % and overestimate changes in conductive heat fluxes by up to similar to 36 % in the wintertime Arctic basin even when sea ice concentrations remain above 95 %. These results highlight how wintertime conductive heat fluxes will increase in a warming world even during times when sea ice concentrations remain high and that snow and the distribution of snow significantly impact large-scale calculations of wintertime surface heat budgets in the Arctic.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7qn6bgw

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2022-04-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact