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E11.1 Validation of Ice-Ocean Interactions in E3SM

E11.1 Validation of Ice-Ocean Interactions in E3SM

Nov 05, 2018

 

Poster Title

Validation of Ice Sheet--Ocean Interactions in Simulations from E3SM’s Cryosphere Science Campaign

Authors

@Xylar Asay-Davis, @Darin Comeau, @Matt Hoffman, @Mark Petersen, @Stephen Price, @Adrian Turner, @Milena Veneziani, @Luke Van Roekel (Unlicensed), @Phillip Wolfram (Unlicensed)

First Author

@Xylar Asay-Davis

Session Type

E3SM/Integrated Session

Session ID

E11 and I5

Submission Type

Poster

Group

Ocean/Ice

Experiment

Cryosphere

Poster Link

 

 

 

Abstract

The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) is an ideal tool for studying the relationship between smaller-scale regional phenomena and the global climate.  E3SM also includes the ability to simulate ocean circulation in ice shelf cavities, and dynamic ice sheet–ocean interactions are under development. These new capabilities are critical for projecting Antarctica’s potential future contributions to global sea level, one of three main scientific foci of the E3SM project. Here, we compare global E3SM simulations with and without ice-shelf cavities under various conditions.  By comparing simulations with prescribed atmospheric and land forcing at two mesh resolutions, nominally 30 and 10 km near Antarctica, we show that simulations with ice-shelf cavities produce melt rates broadly consistent with observations, and that melt biases are reduced at higher horizontal model resolution. We show the effects of resolution and of including melt fluxes under ice shelves on the vertical distribution of temperature and salinity in the region around Antarctica, as well as their impacts on the broader climate.  We also explore the influence of ice-shelf cavities in a pre-industrial control simulation with fully coupled atmosphere, land, sea-ice and ocean components.