Articles | Volume 13, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4773-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Special issue:
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4773-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Model evaluation paper
| 
05 Oct 2020
Model evaluation paper |
| 05 Oct 2020
| 05 Oct 2020
Impact of the ice thickness distribution discretization on the sea ice concentration variability in the NEMO3.6–LIM3 global ocean–sea ice model
Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona, Spain
Pablo Ortega
Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona, Spain
François Massonnet
Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research, Earth and
Life Institute, Université catholique de Louvain,
Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Related authors
Amanda Frigola, Eneko Martin-Martinez, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Margarida Samsó, Saskia Loosvelt-Tomas, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Daria Kuznetsova, Xia Lin, and Pablo Ortega
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-547, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-547, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Ocean Science (OS).
Short summary
Short summary
We examine the performance of coupled climate models at unprecedented resolutions, capable of resolving ocean eddies in extensive areas of the North Atlantic. Eddy-resolving models present more realistic density profiles and stronger deep water convection in the subpolar North Atlantic. The strength and structure of the Gulf Stream, North Atlantic Current, and subpolar gyre are also improved at high resolution, and so is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.
Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Thomas Arsouze, Mario Acosta, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Miguel Castrillo, Eric Ferrer, Amanda Frigola, Daria Kuznetsova, Eneko Martin-Martinez, Pablo Ortega, and Sergi Palomas
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 461–482, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-461-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-461-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We present the high-resolution model version of the EC-Earth global climate model to contribute to HighResMIP. The combined model resolution is about 10–15 km in both the ocean and atmosphere, which makes it one of the finest ever used to complete historical and scenario simulations. This model is compared with two lower-resolution versions, with a 100 km and a 25 km grid. The three models are compared with observations to study the improvements thanks to the increased resolution.
Eneko Martin-Martinez, Amanda Frigola, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Daria Kuznetsova, Saskia Loosveldt-Tomas, Margarida Samsó Cabré, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, and Pablo Ortega
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3625, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3625, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate the impact of model resolution on different processes in the North Atlantic using three different resolutions of the same climate model. The higher resolutions allow for the explicit simulation of smaller-scale processes. We found differences across resolutions on how denser waters are formed and transported southward impacting the large-scale circulation of the Atlantic Ocean.
Guillian Van Achter, Thierry Fichefet, Hugues Goosse, and Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro
The Cryosphere, 16, 4745–4761, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4745-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4745-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate the changes in ocean–ice interactions in the Totten Glacier area between the last decades (1995–2014) and the end of the 21st century (2081–2100) under warmer climate conditions. By the end of the 21st century, the sea ice is strongly reduced, and the ocean circulation close to the coast is accelerated. Our research highlights the importance of including representations of fast ice to simulate realistic ice shelf melt rate increase in East Antarctica under warming conditions.
Sam White, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Davide Zanchettin, Heli Huhtamaa, Dagomar Degroot, Markus Stoffel, and Christophe Corona
Clim. Past, 18, 739–757, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-739-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-739-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This study examines whether the 1600 Huaynaputina volcano eruption triggered persistent cooling in the North Atlantic. It compares previous paleoclimate simulations with new climate reconstructions from natural proxies and historical documents and finds that the reconstructions are consistent with, but do not support, an eruption trigger for persistent cooling. The study also analyzes societal impacts of climatic change in ca. 1600 and the use of historical observations in model–data comparison.
Ralf Döscher, Mario Acosta, Andrea Alessandri, Peter Anthoni, Thomas Arsouze, Tommi Bergman, Raffaele Bernardello, Souhail Boussetta, Louis-Philippe Caron, Glenn Carver, Miguel Castrillo, Franco Catalano, Ivana Cvijanovic, Paolo Davini, Evelien Dekker, Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, David Docquier, Pablo Echevarria, Uwe Fladrich, Ramon Fuentes-Franco, Matthias Gröger, Jost v. Hardenberg, Jenny Hieronymus, M. Pasha Karami, Jukka-Pekka Keskinen, Torben Koenigk, Risto Makkonen, François Massonnet, Martin Ménégoz, Paul A. Miller, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Lars Nieradzik, Twan van Noije, Paul Nolan, Declan O'Donnell, Pirkka Ollinaho, Gijs van den Oord, Pablo Ortega, Oriol Tintó Prims, Arthur Ramos, Thomas Reerink, Clement Rousset, Yohan Ruprich-Robert, Philippe Le Sager, Torben Schmith, Roland Schrödner, Federico Serva, Valentina Sicardi, Marianne Sloth Madsen, Benjamin Smith, Tian Tian, Etienne Tourigny, Petteri Uotila, Martin Vancoppenolle, Shiyu Wang, David Wårlind, Ulrika Willén, Klaus Wyser, Shuting Yang, Xavier Yepes-Arbós, and Qiong Zhang
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2973–3020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2973-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2973-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The Earth system model EC-Earth3 is documented here. Key performance metrics show physical behavior and biases well within the frame known from recent models. With improved physical and dynamic features, new ESM components, community tools, and largely improved physical performance compared to the CMIP5 version, EC-Earth3 represents a clear step forward for the only European community ESM. We demonstrate here that EC-Earth3 is suited for a range of tasks in CMIP6 and beyond.
Charles Pelletier, Thierry Fichefet, Hugues Goosse, Konstanze Haubner, Samuel Helsen, Pierre-Vincent Huot, Christoph Kittel, François Klein, Sébastien Le clec'h, Nicole P. M. van Lipzig, Sylvain Marchi, François Massonnet, Pierre Mathiot, Ehsan Moravveji, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Pablo Ortega, Frank Pattyn, Niels Souverijns, Guillian Van Achter, Sam Vanden Broucke, Alexander Vanhulle, Deborah Verfaillie, and Lars Zipf
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 553–594, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-553-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-553-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We present PARASO, a circumpolar model for simulating the Antarctic climate. PARASO features five distinct models, each covering different Earth system subcomponents (ice sheet, atmosphere, land, sea ice, ocean). In this technical article, we describe how this tool has been developed, with a focus on the
coupling interfacesrepresenting the feedbacks between the distinct models used for contribution. PARASO is stable and ready to use but is still characterized by significant biases.
Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Louis-Philippe Caron, Saskia Loosveldt Tomas, Javier Vegas-Regidor, Oliver Gutjahr, Marie-Pierre Moine, Dian Putrasahan, Christopher D. Roberts, Malcolm J. Roberts, Retish Senan, Laurent Terray, Etienne Tourigny, and Pier Luigi Vidale
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 269–289, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-269-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-269-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Climate models do not fully reproduce observations: they show differences (biases) in regional temperature, precipitation, or cloud cover. Reducing model biases is important to increase our confidence in their ability to reproduce present and future climate changes. Model realism is set by its resolution: the finer it is, the more physical processes and interactions it can resolve. We here show that increasing resolution of up to ~ 25 km can help reduce model biases but not remove them entirely.
Roberto Bilbao, Simon Wild, Pablo Ortega, Juan Acosta-Navarro, Thomas Arsouze, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Louis-Philippe Caron, Miguel Castrillo, Rubén Cruz-García, Ivana Cvijanovic, Francisco Javier Doblas-Reyes, Markus Donat, Emanuel Dutra, Pablo Echevarría, An-Chi Ho, Saskia Loosveldt-Tomas, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Núria Pérez-Zanon, Arthur Ramos, Yohan Ruprich-Robert, Valentina Sicardi, Etienne Tourigny, and Javier Vegas-Regidor
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 173–196, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-173-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-173-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This paper presents and evaluates a set of retrospective decadal predictions with the EC-Earth3 climate model. These experiments successfully predict past changes in surface air temperature but show poor predictive capacity in the subpolar North Atlantic, a well-known source region of decadal climate variability. The poor predictive capacity is linked to an initial shock affecting the Atlantic Ocean circulation, ultimately due to a suboptimal representation of the Labrador Sea density.
Maria Pyrina, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Sebastian Wagner, and Eduardo Zorita
Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2019-50, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2019-50, 2019
Revised manuscript not accepted
François Massonnet, Antoine Barthélemy, Koffi Worou, Thierry Fichefet, Martin Vancoppenolle, Clément Rousset, and Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 3745–3758, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3745-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3745-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Sea ice thickness varies considerably on spatial scales of several meters. However, contemporary climate models cannot resolve such scales yet. This is why sea ice models used in climate models include an ice thickness distribution (ITD) to account for this unresolved variability. Here, we explore with the ocean–sea ice model NEMO3.6-LIM3 the sensitivity of simulated mean Arctic and Antarctic sea ice states to the way the ITD is discretized.
Amanda Frigola, Eneko Martin-Martinez, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Margarida Samsó, Saskia Loosvelt-Tomas, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Daria Kuznetsova, Xia Lin, and Pablo Ortega
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-547, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-547, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Ocean Science (OS).
Short summary
Short summary
We examine the performance of coupled climate models at unprecedented resolutions, capable of resolving ocean eddies in extensive areas of the North Atlantic. Eddy-resolving models present more realistic density profiles and stronger deep water convection in the subpolar North Atlantic. The strength and structure of the Gulf Stream, North Atlantic Current, and subpolar gyre are also improved at high resolution, and so is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.
Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Thomas Arsouze, Mario Acosta, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Miguel Castrillo, Eric Ferrer, Amanda Frigola, Daria Kuznetsova, Eneko Martin-Martinez, Pablo Ortega, and Sergi Palomas
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 461–482, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-461-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-461-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We present the high-resolution model version of the EC-Earth global climate model to contribute to HighResMIP. The combined model resolution is about 10–15 km in both the ocean and atmosphere, which makes it one of the finest ever used to complete historical and scenario simulations. This model is compared with two lower-resolution versions, with a 100 km and a 25 km grid. The three models are compared with observations to study the improvements thanks to the increased resolution.
Eneko Martin-Martinez, Amanda Frigola, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Daria Kuznetsova, Saskia Loosveldt-Tomas, Margarida Samsó Cabré, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, and Pablo Ortega
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3625, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3625, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate the impact of model resolution on different processes in the North Atlantic using three different resolutions of the same climate model. The higher resolutions allow for the explicit simulation of smaller-scale processes. We found differences across resolutions on how denser waters are formed and transported southward impacting the large-scale circulation of the Atlantic Ocean.
Sofia Allende, Anne Marie Treguier, Camille Lique, Clément de Boyer Montégut, François Massonnet, Thierry Fichefet, and Antoine Barthélemy
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 7445–7466, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7445-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7445-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We study the parameters of the turbulent-kinetic-energy mixed-layer-penetration scheme in the NEMO model with regard to sea-ice-covered regions of the Arctic Ocean. This evaluation reveals the impact of these parameters on mixed-layer depth, sea surface temperature and salinity, and ocean stratification. Our findings demonstrate significant impacts on sea ice thickness and sea ice concentration, emphasizing the need for accurately representing ocean mixing to understand Arctic climate dynamics.
Jerome Sauer, Francesco Ragone, François Massonnet, and Giuseppe Zappa
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3082, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3082, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
An obstacle in studying climate extremes is the lack of robust statistics. We use a rare event algorithm to gather robust statistics on extreme Arctic sea ice lows with probabilities below 0.1 % and to study drivers of events with amplitudes larger than observed in 2012. The work highlights that the most extreme sea ice reductions result from the combined effects of preconditioning and weather variability, emphasizing the need for thoughtful ensemble design when turning to real applications.
Bianca Mezzina, Hugues Goosse, François Klein, Antoine Barthélemy, and François Massonnet
The Cryosphere, 18, 3825–3839, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-3825-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-3825-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We analyze years with extraordinarily low sea ice extent in Antarctica during summer, until the striking record in 2022. We highlight common aspects among these events, such as the fact that the exceptional melting usually occurs in two key regions and that it is related to winds with a similar direction. We also investigate whether the summer conditions are preceded by an unusual state of the sea ice during the previous winter, as well as the physical processes involved.
Annelies Sticker, François Massonnet, Thierry Fichefet, Patricia DeRepentigny, Alexandra Jahn, David Docquier, Christopher Wyburn-Powell, Daphne Quint, Erica Shivers, and Makayla Ortiz
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1873, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1873, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Our study analyses rapid Arctic sea ice loss events (RILEs), which are significant reductions in sea ice extent. RILEs are expected throughout the year, varying in frequency and duration with the seasons. Our research gives a year-round analysis of their characteristics in climate models and suggests that summer RILEs could begin before the mid-century. Understanding these events is crucial as they can have profound impacts on the Arctic environment.
Steve Delhaye, Rym Msadek, Thierry Fichefet, François Massonnet, and Laurent Terray
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1748, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1748, 2023
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
The climate impact of Arctic sea ice loss may depend on the region of sea ice loss and the methodology used to study this impact. This study uses two approaches across seven climate models to investigate the winter atmospheric circulation response to regional sea ice loss. Our findings indicate a consistent atmospheric circulation response to pan-Arctic sea ice loss in most models and across both approaches. In contrast, more uncertainty emerges in the responses linked to regional sea ice loss.
Mukesh Gupta, Leandro Ponsoni, Jean Sterlin, François Massonnet, and Thierry Fichefet
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1560, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1560, 2023
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
We explored the relationship of Arctic September minimum sea ice extent with mid-summer melt pond area fraction, under the present-day climate. We confirm through the advanced numerical modelling, with an explicit melt pond scheme in the global climate model, EC-EARTH3, that melt pond fraction in mid-summer (June–July, not May) shows a strong relationship with the Arctic September sea ice extent. Satellite-based inferences validated our findings of this association.
Xia Lin, François Massonnet, Thierry Fichefet, and Martin Vancoppenolle
The Cryosphere, 17, 1935–1965, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-1935-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-1935-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This study provides clues on how improved atmospheric reanalysis products influence sea ice simulations in ocean–sea ice models. The summer ice concentration simulation in both hemispheres can be improved with changed surface heat fluxes. The winter Antarctic ice concentration and the Arctic drift speed near the ice edge and the ice velocity direction simulations are improved with changed wind stress. The radiation fluxes and winds in atmospheric reanalyses are crucial for sea ice simulations.
Hugues Goosse, Sofia Allende Contador, Cecilia M. Bitz, Edward Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, Clare Eayrs, Thierry Fichefet, Kenza Himmich, Pierre-Vincent Huot, François Klein, Sylvain Marchi, François Massonnet, Bianca Mezzina, Charles Pelletier, Lettie Roach, Martin Vancoppenolle, and Nicole P. M. van Lipzig
The Cryosphere, 17, 407–425, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-407-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-407-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Using idealized sensitivity experiments with a regional atmosphere–ocean–sea ice model, we show that sea ice advance is constrained by initial conditions in March and the retreat season is influenced by the magnitude of several physical processes, in particular by the ice–albedo feedback and ice transport. Atmospheric feedbacks amplify the response of the winter ice extent to perturbations, while some negative feedbacks related to heat conduction fluxes act on the ice volume.
Guillian Van Achter, Thierry Fichefet, Hugues Goosse, and Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro
The Cryosphere, 16, 4745–4761, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4745-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4745-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate the changes in ocean–ice interactions in the Totten Glacier area between the last decades (1995–2014) and the end of the 21st century (2081–2100) under warmer climate conditions. By the end of the 21st century, the sea ice is strongly reduced, and the ocean circulation close to the coast is accelerated. Our research highlights the importance of including representations of fast ice to simulate realistic ice shelf melt rate increase in East Antarctica under warming conditions.
Steve Delhaye, Thierry Fichefet, François Massonnet, David Docquier, Rym Msadek, Svenya Chripko, Christopher Roberts, Sarah Keeley, and Retish Senan
Weather Clim. Dynam., 3, 555–573, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-555-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-555-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
It is unclear how the atmosphere will respond to a retreat of summer Arctic sea ice. Much attention has been paid so far to weather extremes at mid-latitude and in winter. Here we focus on the changes in extremes in surface air temperature and precipitation over the Arctic regions in summer during and following abrupt sea ice retreats. We find that Arctic sea ice loss clearly shifts the extremes in surface air temperature and precipitation over terrestrial regions surrounding the Arctic Ocean.
Sam White, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Davide Zanchettin, Heli Huhtamaa, Dagomar Degroot, Markus Stoffel, and Christophe Corona
Clim. Past, 18, 739–757, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-739-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-739-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This study examines whether the 1600 Huaynaputina volcano eruption triggered persistent cooling in the North Atlantic. It compares previous paleoclimate simulations with new climate reconstructions from natural proxies and historical documents and finds that the reconstructions are consistent with, but do not support, an eruption trigger for persistent cooling. The study also analyzes societal impacts of climatic change in ca. 1600 and the use of historical observations in model–data comparison.
Ralf Döscher, Mario Acosta, Andrea Alessandri, Peter Anthoni, Thomas Arsouze, Tommi Bergman, Raffaele Bernardello, Souhail Boussetta, Louis-Philippe Caron, Glenn Carver, Miguel Castrillo, Franco Catalano, Ivana Cvijanovic, Paolo Davini, Evelien Dekker, Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, David Docquier, Pablo Echevarria, Uwe Fladrich, Ramon Fuentes-Franco, Matthias Gröger, Jost v. Hardenberg, Jenny Hieronymus, M. Pasha Karami, Jukka-Pekka Keskinen, Torben Koenigk, Risto Makkonen, François Massonnet, Martin Ménégoz, Paul A. Miller, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Lars Nieradzik, Twan van Noije, Paul Nolan, Declan O'Donnell, Pirkka Ollinaho, Gijs van den Oord, Pablo Ortega, Oriol Tintó Prims, Arthur Ramos, Thomas Reerink, Clement Rousset, Yohan Ruprich-Robert, Philippe Le Sager, Torben Schmith, Roland Schrödner, Federico Serva, Valentina Sicardi, Marianne Sloth Madsen, Benjamin Smith, Tian Tian, Etienne Tourigny, Petteri Uotila, Martin Vancoppenolle, Shiyu Wang, David Wårlind, Ulrika Willén, Klaus Wyser, Shuting Yang, Xavier Yepes-Arbós, and Qiong Zhang
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2973–3020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2973-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2973-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The Earth system model EC-Earth3 is documented here. Key performance metrics show physical behavior and biases well within the frame known from recent models. With improved physical and dynamic features, new ESM components, community tools, and largely improved physical performance compared to the CMIP5 version, EC-Earth3 represents a clear step forward for the only European community ESM. We demonstrate here that EC-Earth3 is suited for a range of tasks in CMIP6 and beyond.
Charles Pelletier, Thierry Fichefet, Hugues Goosse, Konstanze Haubner, Samuel Helsen, Pierre-Vincent Huot, Christoph Kittel, François Klein, Sébastien Le clec'h, Nicole P. M. van Lipzig, Sylvain Marchi, François Massonnet, Pierre Mathiot, Ehsan Moravveji, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Pablo Ortega, Frank Pattyn, Niels Souverijns, Guillian Van Achter, Sam Vanden Broucke, Alexander Vanhulle, Deborah Verfaillie, and Lars Zipf
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 553–594, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-553-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-553-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We present PARASO, a circumpolar model for simulating the Antarctic climate. PARASO features five distinct models, each covering different Earth system subcomponents (ice sheet, atmosphere, land, sea ice, ocean). In this technical article, we describe how this tool has been developed, with a focus on the
coupling interfacesrepresenting the feedbacks between the distinct models used for contribution. PARASO is stable and ready to use but is still characterized by significant biases.
Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Louis-Philippe Caron, Saskia Loosveldt Tomas, Javier Vegas-Regidor, Oliver Gutjahr, Marie-Pierre Moine, Dian Putrasahan, Christopher D. Roberts, Malcolm J. Roberts, Retish Senan, Laurent Terray, Etienne Tourigny, and Pier Luigi Vidale
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 269–289, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-269-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-269-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Climate models do not fully reproduce observations: they show differences (biases) in regional temperature, precipitation, or cloud cover. Reducing model biases is important to increase our confidence in their ability to reproduce present and future climate changes. Model realism is set by its resolution: the finer it is, the more physical processes and interactions it can resolve. We here show that increasing resolution of up to ~ 25 km can help reduce model biases but not remove them entirely.
Xia Lin, François Massonnet, Thierry Fichefet, and Martin Vancoppenolle
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 6331–6354, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-6331-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-6331-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This study introduces a new Sea Ice Evaluation Tool (SITool) to evaluate the model skills on the bipolar sea ice simulations by providing performance metrics and diagnostics. SITool is applied to evaluate the CMIP6 OMIP simulations. By changing the atmospheric forcing from CORE-II to JRA55-do data, many aspects of sea ice simulations are improved. SITool will be useful for helping teams managing various versions of a sea ice model or tracking the time evolution of model performance.
Tian Tian, Shuting Yang, Mehdi Pasha Karami, François Massonnet, Tim Kruschke, and Torben Koenigk
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 4283–4305, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-4283-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-4283-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Three decadal prediction experiments with EC-Earth3 are performed to investigate the impact of ocean, sea ice concentration and thickness initialization, respectively. We find that the persistence of perennial thick ice in the central Arctic can affect the sea ice predictability in its adjacent waters via advection process or wind, despite those regions being seasonally ice free during two recent decades. This has implications for the coming decades as the thinning of Arctic sea ice continues.
Ann Keen, Ed Blockley, David A. Bailey, Jens Boldingh Debernard, Mitchell Bushuk, Steve Delhaye, David Docquier, Daniel Feltham, François Massonnet, Siobhan O'Farrell, Leandro Ponsoni, José M. Rodriguez, David Schroeder, Neil Swart, Takahiro Toyoda, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Martin Vancoppenolle, and Klaus Wyser
The Cryosphere, 15, 951–982, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-951-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-951-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We compare the mass budget of the Arctic sea ice in a number of the latest climate models. New output has been defined that allows us to compare the processes of sea ice growth and loss in a more detailed way than has previously been possible. We find that that the models are strikingly similar in terms of the major processes causing the annual growth and loss of Arctic sea ice and that the budget terms respond in a broadly consistent way as the climate warms during the 21st century.
Roberto Bilbao, Simon Wild, Pablo Ortega, Juan Acosta-Navarro, Thomas Arsouze, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Louis-Philippe Caron, Miguel Castrillo, Rubén Cruz-García, Ivana Cvijanovic, Francisco Javier Doblas-Reyes, Markus Donat, Emanuel Dutra, Pablo Echevarría, An-Chi Ho, Saskia Loosveldt-Tomas, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Núria Pérez-Zanon, Arthur Ramos, Yohan Ruprich-Robert, Valentina Sicardi, Etienne Tourigny, and Javier Vegas-Regidor
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 173–196, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-173-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-173-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This paper presents and evaluates a set of retrospective decadal predictions with the EC-Earth3 climate model. These experiments successfully predict past changes in surface air temperature but show poor predictive capacity in the subpolar North Atlantic, a well-known source region of decadal climate variability. The poor predictive capacity is linked to an initial shock affecting the Atlantic Ocean circulation, ultimately due to a suboptimal representation of the Labrador Sea density.
Qian Shi, Qinghua Yang, Longjiang Mu, Jinfei Wang, François Massonnet, and Matthew R. Mazloff
The Cryosphere, 15, 31–47, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-31-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-31-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The ice thickness from four state-of-the-art reanalyses (GECCO2, SOSE, NEMO-EnKF and GIOMAS) are evaluated against that from remote sensing and in situ observations in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Most of the reanalyses can reproduce ice thickness in the central and eastern Weddell Sea but failed to capture the thick and deformed ice in the western Weddell Sea. These results demonstrate the possibilities and limitations of using current sea-ice reanalysis in Antarctic climate research.
Guillian Van Achter, Leandro Ponsoni, François Massonnet, Thierry Fichefet, and Vincent Legat
The Cryosphere, 14, 3479–3486, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3479-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3479-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
We document the spatio-temporal internal variability of Arctic sea ice thickness and its changes under anthropogenic forcing, which is key to understanding, and eventually predicting, the evolution of sea ice in response to climate change.
The patterns of sea ice thickness variability remain more or less stable during pre-industrial, historical and future periods, despite non-stationarity on short timescales. These patterns start to change once Arctic summer ice-free events occur, after 2050.
Veronika Eyring, Lisa Bock, Axel Lauer, Mattia Righi, Manuel Schlund, Bouwe Andela, Enrico Arnone, Omar Bellprat, Björn Brötz, Louis-Philippe Caron, Nuno Carvalhais, Irene Cionni, Nicola Cortesi, Bas Crezee, Edouard L. Davin, Paolo Davini, Kevin Debeire, Lee de Mora, Clara Deser, David Docquier, Paul Earnshaw, Carsten Ehbrecht, Bettina K. Gier, Nube Gonzalez-Reviriego, Paul Goodman, Stefan Hagemann, Steven Hardiman, Birgit Hassler, Alasdair Hunter, Christopher Kadow, Stephan Kindermann, Sujan Koirala, Nikolay Koldunov, Quentin Lejeune, Valerio Lembo, Tomas Lovato, Valerio Lucarini, François Massonnet, Benjamin Müller, Amarjiit Pandde, Núria Pérez-Zanón, Adam Phillips, Valeriu Predoi, Joellen Russell, Alistair Sellar, Federico Serva, Tobias Stacke, Ranjini Swaminathan, Verónica Torralba, Javier Vegas-Regidor, Jost von Hardenberg, Katja Weigel, and Klaus Zimmermann
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 3383–3438, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3383-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3383-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool) is a community diagnostics and performance metrics tool designed to improve comprehensive and routine evaluation of earth system models (ESMs) participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). It has undergone rapid development since the first release in 2016 and is now a well-tested tool that provides end-to-end provenance tracking to ensure reproducibility.
Leandro Ponsoni, François Massonnet, David Docquier, Guillian Van Achter, and Thierry Fichefet
The Cryosphere, 14, 2409–2428, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2409-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2409-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The continuous melting of the Arctic sea ice observed in the last decades has a significant impact at global and regional scales. To understand the amplitude and consequences of this impact, the monitoring of the total sea ice volume is crucial. However, in situ monitoring in such a harsh environment is hard to perform and far too expensive. This study shows that four well-placed sampling locations are sufficient to explain about 70 % of the inter-annual changes in the pan-Arctic sea ice volume.
Torben Koenigk, Ramon Fuentes-Franco, Virna Meccia, Oliver Gutjahr, Laura C. Jackson, Adrian L. New, Pablo Ortega, Christopher Roberts, Malcolm Roberts, Thomas Arsouze, Doroteaciro Iovino, Marie-Pierre Moine, and Dmitry V. Sein
Ocean Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/os-2020-41, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-2020-41, 2020
Revised manuscript not accepted
Short summary
Short summary
The mixing of water masses into the deep ocean in the North Atlantic is important for the entire global ocean circulation. We use seven global climate models to investigate the effect of increasing the model resolution on this deep ocean mixing. The main result is that increased model resolution leads to a deeper mixing of water masses in the Labrador Sea but has less effect in the Greenland Sea. However, most of the models overestimate the deep ocean mixing compared to observations.
François Massonnet, Martin Ménégoz, Mario Acosta, Xavier Yepes-Arbós, Eleftheria Exarchou, and Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 1165–1178, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-1165-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-1165-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Earth system models (ESMs) are one of the cornerstones of modern climate science. They are usually run on high-performance computers (HPCs). Whether the choice of HPC can affect the model results is a question of importance for optimizing the design of scientific studies. Here, we introduce a protocol for testing the replicability of the EC-Earth3 ESM across different HPCs. We find the simulation results to be replicable only if specific precautions are taken at the compilation stage.
Maria Pyrina, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Sebastian Wagner, and Eduardo Zorita
Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2019-50, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2019-50, 2019
Revised manuscript not accepted
François Massonnet, Antoine Barthélemy, Koffi Worou, Thierry Fichefet, Martin Vancoppenolle, Clément Rousset, and Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 3745–3758, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3745-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3745-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Sea ice thickness varies considerably on spatial scales of several meters. However, contemporary climate models cannot resolve such scales yet. This is why sea ice models used in climate models include an ice thickness distribution (ITD) to account for this unresolved variability. Here, we explore with the ocean–sea ice model NEMO3.6-LIM3 the sensitivity of simulated mean Arctic and Antarctic sea ice states to the way the ITD is discretized.
Leandro Ponsoni, François Massonnet, Thierry Fichefet, Matthieu Chevallier, and David Docquier
The Cryosphere, 13, 521–543, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-521-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-521-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
The Arctic is a main component of the Earth's climate system. It is fundamental to understand the behavior of Arctic sea ice coverage over time and in space due to many factors, e.g., shipping lanes, the travel and tourism industry, hunting and fishing activities, mineral resource extraction, and the potential impact on the weather in midlatitude regions. In this work we use observations and results from models to understand how variations in the sea ice thickness change over time and in space.
Marion Lebrun, Martin Vancoppenolle, Gurvan Madec, and François Massonnet
The Cryosphere, 13, 79–96, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-79-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-79-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
The present analysis shows that the increase in the Arctic ice-free season duration will be asymmetrical, with later autumn freeze-up contributing about twice as much as earlier spring retreat. This feature is robustly found in a hierarchy of climate models and is consistent with a simple mechanism: solar energy is absorbed more efficiently than it can be released in non-solar form and should emerge out of variability within the next few decades.
David Docquier, François Massonnet, Antoine Barthélemy, Neil F. Tandon, Olivier Lecomte, and Thierry Fichefet
The Cryosphere, 11, 2829–2846, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2829-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2829-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Our study provides a new way to evaluate the performance of a climate model regarding the interplay between sea ice motion, area and thickness in the Arctic against different observation datasets. We show that the NEMO-LIM model is good in that respect and that the relationships between the different sea ice variables are complex. The metrics we developed can be used in the framework of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6), which will feed the next IPCC report.
Dirk Notz, Alexandra Jahn, Marika Holland, Elizabeth Hunke, François Massonnet, Julienne Stroeve, Bruno Tremblay, and Martin Vancoppenolle
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 3427–3446, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3427-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3427-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
The large-scale evolution of sea ice is both an indicator and a driver of climate changes. Hence, a realistic simulation of sea ice is key for a realistic simulation of the climate system of our planet. To assess and to improve the realism of sea-ice simulations, we present here a new protocol for climate-model output that allows for an in-depth analysis of the simulated evolution of sea ice.
P. J. Hezel, T. Fichefet, and F. Massonnet
The Cryosphere, 8, 1195–1204, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-1195-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-1195-2014, 2014
V. Zunz, H. Goosse, and F. Massonnet
The Cryosphere, 7, 451–468, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-451-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-451-2013, 2013
Related subject area
Cryosphere
Tuning parameters of a sea ice model using machine learning
WRF-Chem simulations of snow nitrate and other physicochemical properties in northern China
Clustering simulated snow profiles to form avalanche forecast regions
SnowQM 1.0: a fast R package for bias-correcting spatial fields of snow water equivalent using quantile mapping
Simulation of snow albedo and solar irradiance profile with the Two-streAm Radiative TransfEr in Snow (TARTES) v2.0 model
Evaluation of MITgcm-based ocean reanalyses for the Southern Ocean
Improvements in the land surface configuration to better simulate seasonal snow cover in the European Alps with the CNRM-AROME (cycle 46) convection-permitting regional climate model
A three-stage model pipeline predicting regional avalanche danger in Switzerland (RAvaFcast v1.0.0): a decision-support tool for operational avalanche forecasting
A global–land snow scheme (GLASS) v1.0 for the GFDL Earth System Model: formulation and evaluation at instrumented sites
A gradient-boosted tree framework to model the ice thickness of the World's glaciers (IceBoost v1)
Design and performance of ELSA v2.0: an isochronal model for ice-sheet layer tracing
Southern Ocean Ice Prediction System version 1.0 (SOIPS v1.0): description of the system and evaluation of synoptic-scale sea ice forecasts
Lagrangian tracking of sea ice in Community Ice CodE (CICE; version 5)
openAMUNDSEN v1.0: an open-source snow-hydrological model for mountain regions
OpenFOAM-avalanche 2312: depth-integrated models beyond dense-flow avalanches
Refactoring the elastic–viscous–plastic solver from the sea ice model CICE v6.5.1 for improved performance
CMIP6 models overestimate sea ice melt, growth & conduction relative to ice mass balance buoy estimates
A new 3D full-Stokes calving algorithm within Elmer/Ice (v9.0)
Towards deep learning solutions for classification of automated snow height measurements (CleanSnow v1.0.0)
Quantitative Sub-Ice and Marine Tracing of Antarctic Sediment Provenance (TASP v1.0)
Coupling framework (1.0) for the Úa (2023b) ice sheet model and the FESOM-1.4 z-coordinate ocean model in an Antarctic domain
A novel numerical implementation for the surface energy budget of melting snowpacks and glaciers
SnowPappus v1.0, a blowing-snow model for large-scale applications of the Crocus snow scheme
A stochastic parameterization of ice sheet surface mass balance for the Stochastic Ice-Sheet and Sea-Level System Model (StISSM v1.0)
Graphics-processing-unit-accelerated ice flow solver for unstructured meshes using the Shallow-Shelf Approximation (FastIceFlo v1.0.1)
A finite-element framework to explore the numerical solution of the coupled problem of heat conduction, water vapor diffusion, and settlement in dry snow (IvoriFEM v0.1.0)
AvaFrame com1DFA (v1.3): a thickness-integrated computational avalanche module – theory, numerics, and testing
Universal differential equations for glacier ice flow modelling
A new model for supraglacial hydrology evolution and drainage for the Greenland Ice Sheet (SHED v1.0)
Modeling sensitivities of thermally and hydraulically driven ice stream surge cycling
A parallel implementation of the confined–unconfined aquifer system model for subglacial hydrology: design, verification, and performance analysis (CUAS-MPI v0.1.0)
Automatic snow type classification of snow micropenetrometer profiles with machine learning algorithms
An empirical model to calculate snow depth from daily snow water equivalent: SWE2HS 1.0
A wind-driven snow redistribution module for Alpine3D v3.3.0: adaptations designed for downscaling ice sheet surface mass balance
The CryoGrid community model (version 1.0) – a multi-physics toolbox for climate-driven simulations in the terrestrial cryosphere
Glacier Energy and Mass Balance (GEMB): a model of firn processes for cryosphere research
Sensitivity of NEMO4.0-SI3 model parameters on sea ice budgets in the Southern Ocean
Introducing CRYOWRF v1.0: multiscale atmospheric flow simulations with advanced snow cover modelling
SUHMO: an adaptive mesh refinement SUbglacial Hydrology MOdel v1.0
Improving snow albedo modeling in the E3SM land model (version 2.0) and assessing its impacts on snow and surface fluxes over the Tibetan Plateau
The Multiple Snow Data Assimilation System (MuSA v1.0)
The Stochastic Ice-Sheet and Sea-Level System Model v1.0 (StISSM v1.0)
Improved representation of the contemporary Greenland ice sheet firn layer by IMAU-FDM v1.2G
Modeling the small-scale deposition of snow onto structured Arctic sea ice during a MOSAiC storm using snowBedFoam 1.0.
Benchmarking the vertically integrated ice-sheet model IMAU-ICE (version 2.0)
SnowClim v1.0: high-resolution snow model and data for the western United States
Snow Multidata Mapping and Modeling (S3M) 5.1: a distributed cryospheric model with dry and wet snow, data assimilation, glacier mass balance, and debris-driven melt
MPAS-Seaice (v1.0.0): sea-ice dynamics on unstructured Voronoi meshes
Explicitly modelling microtopography in permafrost landscapes in a land surface model (JULES vn5.4_microtopography)
Geometric remapping of particle distributions in the Discrete Element Model for Sea Ice (DEMSI v0.0)
Anton Korosov, Yue Ying, and Einar Ólason
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 885–904, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-885-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-885-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We have developed a new method to improve the accuracy of sea ice models, which predict how ice moves and deforms due to wind and ocean currents. Traditional models use parameters that are often poorly defined. The new approach uses machine learning to fine-tune these parameters by comparing simulated ice drift with satellite data. The method identifies optimal settings for the model by analysing patterns in ice deformation. This results in more accurate simulations of sea ice drift forecasting.
Xia Wang, Tao Che, Xueyin Ruan, Shanna Yue, Jing Wang, Chun Zhao, and Lei Geng
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 651–670, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-651-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-651-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We employed the WRF-Chem model to parameterize atmospheric nitrate deposition in snow and evaluate its performance in simulating snow cover, snow depth, and concentrations of dust and nitrate using new observations from northern China. The results generally exhibit reasonable agreement with field observations in northern China, demonstrating the model's capability to simulate snow properties, including concentrations of reservoir species.
Simon Horton, Florian Herla, and Pascal Haegeli
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 193–209, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-193-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-193-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We present a method for avalanche forecasters to analyze patterns in snowpack model simulations. It uses fuzzy clustering to group small regions into larger forecast areas based on snow characteristics, locations, and temporal history. Tested in the Columbia Mountains in two winter seasons, it closely matched real forecast regions regions and identified major avalanche hazard patterns. This approach simplifies complex model outputs, helping forecasters make informed decisions.
Adrien Michel, Johannes Aschauer, Tobias Jonas, Stefanie Gubler, Sven Kotlarski, and Christoph Marty
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 8969–8988, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8969-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8969-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We present a method to correct snow cover maps (represented in terms of snow water equivalent) to match better-quality maps. The correction can then be extended backwards and forwards in time for periods when better-quality maps are not available. The method is fast and gives good results. It is then applied to obtain a climatology of the snow cover in Switzerland over the past 60 years at a resolution of 1 d and 1 km. This is the first time that such a dataset has been produced.
Ghislain Picard and Quentin Libois
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 8927–8953, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8927-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8927-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Two-streAm Radiative TransfEr in Snow (TARTES) is a radiative transfer model to compute snow albedo in the solar domain and the profiles of light and energy absorption in a multi-layered snowpack whose physical properties are user defined. It uniquely considers snow grain shape flexibly, based on recent insights showing that snow does not behave as a collection of ice spheres but instead as a random medium. TARTES is user-friendly yet performs comparably to more complex models.
Yoshihiro Nakayama, Alena Malyarenko, Hong Zhang, Ou Wang, Matthis Auger, Yafei Nie, Ian Fenty, Matthew Mazloff, Armin Köhl, and Dimitris Menemenlis
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 8613–8638, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8613-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8613-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Global- and basin-scale ocean reanalyses are becoming easily accessible. However, such ocean reanalyses are optimized for their entire model domains and their ability to simulate the Southern Ocean requires evaluation. We conduct intercomparison analyses of Massachusetts Institute of Technology General Circulation Model (MITgcm)-based ocean reanalyses. They generally perform well for the open ocean, but open-ocean temporal variability and Antarctic continental shelves require improvements.
Diego Monteiro, Cécile Caillaud, Matthieu Lafaysse, Adrien Napoly, Mathieu Fructus, Antoinette Alias, and Samuel Morin
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 7645–7677, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7645-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7645-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Modeling snow cover in climate and weather forecasting models is a challenge even for high-resolution models. Recent simulations with CNRM-AROME have shown difficulties when representing snow in the European Alps. Using remote sensing data and in situ observations, we evaluate modifications of the land surface configuration in order to improve it. We propose a new surface configuration, enabling a more realistic simulation of snow cover, relevant for climate and weather forecasting applications.
Alessandro Maissen, Frank Techel, and Michele Volpi
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 7569–7593, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7569-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7569-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
By harnessing AI models, this work enables processing large amounts of data, including weather conditions, snowpack characteristics, and historical avalanche data, to predict human-like avalanche forecasts in Switzerland. Our proposed model can significantly assist avalanche forecasters in their decision-making process, thereby facilitating more efficient and accurate predictions crucial for ensuring safety in Switzerland's avalanche-prone regions.
Enrico Zorzetto, Sergey Malyshev, Paul Ginoux, and Elena Shevliakova
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 7219–7244, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7219-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7219-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We describe a new snow scheme developed for use in global climate models, which simulates the interactions of snowpack with vegetation, atmosphere, and soil. We test the new snow model over a set of sites where in situ observations are available. We find that when compared to a simpler snow model, this model improves predictions of seasonal snow and of soil temperature under the snowpack, important variables for simulating both the hydrological cycle and the global climate system.
Niccolò Maffezzoli, Eric Rignot, Carlo Barbante, Troels Petersen, and Sebastiano Vascon
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2455, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2455, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In this work we introduces IceBoost, a machine learning framework to model the ice thickness distribution of all the World's glaciers, with greater accuracy than state-of-the-art methods. The model is trained on 3.7 million measurements globally available and provides skillful estimates across all regions. This advancement will help in better assessing future sea level changes, freshwater resources, with significance for both the scientific community and society at large.
Therese Rieckh, Andreas Born, Alexander Robinson, Robert Law, and Gerrit Gülle
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6987–7000, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6987-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6987-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We present the open-source model ELSA, which simulates the internal age structure of large ice sheets. It creates layers of snow accumulation at fixed times during the simulation, which are used to model the internal stratification of the ice sheet. Together with reconstructed isochrones from radiostratigraphy data, ELSA can be used to assess ice sheet models and to improve their parameterization. ELSA can be used coupled to an ice sheet model or forced with its output.
Fu Zhao, Xi Liang, Zhongxiang Tian, Ming Li, Na Liu, and Chengyan Liu
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6867–6886, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6867-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6867-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In this work, we introduce a newly developed Antarctic sea ice forecasting system, namely the Southern Ocean Ice Prediction System (SOIPS). The system is based on a regional sea ice‒ocean‒ice shelf coupled model and can assimilate sea ice concentration observations. By assessing the system's performance in sea ice forecasts, we find that the system can provide reliable Antarctic sea ice forecasts for the next 7 d and has the potential to guide ship navigation in the Antarctic sea ice zone.
Chenhui Ning, Shiming Xu, Yan Zhang, Xuantong Wang, Zhihao Fan, and Jiping Liu
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6847–6866, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6847-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6847-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Sea ice models are mainly based on non-moving structured grids, which is different from buoy measurements that follow the ice drift. To facilitate Lagrangian analysis, we introduce online tracking of sea ice in Community Ice CodE (CICE). We validate the sea ice tracking with buoys and evaluate the sea ice deformation in high-resolution simulations, which show multi-fractal characteristics. The source code is openly available and can be used in various scientific and operational applications.
Ulrich Strasser, Michael Warscher, Erwin Rottler, and Florian Hanzer
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6775–6797, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6775-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6775-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
openAMUNDSEN is a fully distributed open-source snow-hydrological model for mountain catchments. It includes process representations of an empirical, semi-empirical, and physical nature. It uses temperature, precipitation, humidity, radiation, and wind speed as forcing data and is computationally efficient, of a modular nature, and easily extendible. The Python code is available on GitHub (https://github.com/openamundsen/openamundsen), including documentation (https://doc.openamundsen.org).
Matthias Rauter and Julia Kowalski
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6545–6569, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6545-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6545-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Snow avalanches can form large powder clouds that substantially exceed the velocity and reach of the dense core. Only a few complex models exist to simulate this phenomenon, and the respective hazard is hard to predict. This work provides a novel flow model that focuses on simple relations while still encapsulating the significant behaviour. The model is applied to reconstruct two catastrophic powder snow avalanche events in Austria.
Till Andreas Soya Rasmussen, Jacob Poulsen, Mads Hvid Ribergaard, Ruchira Sasanka, Anthony P. Craig, Elizabeth C. Hunke, and Stefan Rethmeier
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6529–6544, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6529-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6529-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Earth system models (ESMs) today strive for better quality based on improved resolutions and improved physics. A limiting factor is the supercomputers at hand and how best to utilize them. This study focuses on the refactorization of one part of a sea ice model (CICE), namely the dynamics. It shows that the performance can be significantly improved, which means that one can either run the same simulations much cheaper or advance the system according to what is needed.
Alex Edward West and Edward William Blockley
Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-121, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-121, 2024
Revised manuscript accepted for GMD
Short summary
Short summary
This study uses ice mass balance buoys – temperature and height-measuring devices frozen into sea ice – to find how well climate models simulate the melt & growth of, and conduction of heat through, Arctic sea ice. This may help understand why models produce varying amounts of sea ice in the present day. We find models tend to show more melt, growth or conduction for a given ice thickness than the buoys, though the difference is smaller for models with more physically realistic thermodynamics.
Iain Wheel, Douglas I. Benn, Anna J. Crawford, Joe Todd, and Thomas Zwinger
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 5759–5777, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-5759-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-5759-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Calving, the detachment of large icebergs from glaciers, is one of the largest uncertainties in future sea level rise projections. This process is poorly understood, and there is an absence of detailed models capable of simulating calving. A new 3D calving model has been developed to better understand calving at glaciers where detailed modelling was previously limited. Importantly, the new model is very flexible. By allowing for unrestricted calving geometries, it can be applied at any location.
Jan Svoboda, Marc Ruesch, David Liechti, Corinne Jones, Michele Volpi, Michael Zehnder, and Jürg Schweizer
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1752, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1752, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Accurately measuring snow height is key for modeling approaches in climate sciences, snow hydrology and avalanche forecasting. Erroneous snow height measurements often occur when the snow height is low or changes, for instance, during a snowfall in the summer. We prepare a new benchmark dataset with annotated snow height data and demonstrate how to improve the measurement quality using modern deep learning approaches. Our approach can be easily implemented into a data pipeline for snow modeling.
Jim Marschalek, Edward Gasson, Tina van de Flierdt, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Martin Siegert, and Liam Holder
Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-104, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-104, 2024
Revised manuscript accepted for GMD
Short summary
Short summary
Ice sheet models can help predict how Antarctica's ice sheets respond to environmental change, and such models benefit from comparison to geological data. Here, we use an ice sheet model output, plus other data, to predict the erosion of debris and trace its transport to where it is deposited on the ocean floor. This allows the results of ice sheet modelling to be directly and quantitively compared to real-world data, helping to reduce uncertainty regarding Antarctic sea level contribution.
Ole Richter, Ralph Timmermann, G. Hilmar Gudmundsson, and Jan De Rydt
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-648, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-648, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The new coupled ice sheet-ocean model addresses challenges related to horizontal resolution through advanced mesh flexibility, enabled by the use of unstructured grids. We describe the new model, verify its functioning in an idealised setting and demonstrate its advantages in a global-ocean/Antarctic ice sheet domain. The results of this study comprise an important step towards improving predictions of the Antarctic contribution to sea level rise over centennial time scales.
Kévin Fourteau, Julien Brondex, Fanny Brun, and Marie Dumont
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1903–1929, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1903-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1903-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In this paper, we provide a novel numerical implementation for solving the energy exchanges at the surface of snow and ice. By combining the strong points of previous models, our solution leads to more accurate and robust simulations of the energy exchanges, surface temperature, and melt while preserving a reasonable computation time.
Matthieu Baron, Ange Haddjeri, Matthieu Lafaysse, Louis Le Toumelin, Vincent Vionnet, and Mathieu Fructus
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1297–1326, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1297-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1297-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Increasing the spatial resolution of numerical systems simulating snowpack evolution in mountain areas requires representing small-scale processes such as wind-induced snow transport. We present SnowPappus, a simple scheme coupled with the Crocus snow model to compute blowing-snow fluxes and redistribute snow among grid points at 250 m resolution. In terms of numerical cost, it is suitable for large-scale applications. We present point-scale evaluations of fluxes and snow transport occurrence.
Lizz Ultee, Alexander A. Robel, and Stefano Castruccio
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1041–1057, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1041-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1041-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The surface mass balance (SMB) of an ice sheet describes the net gain or loss of mass from ice sheets (such as those in Greenland and Antarctica) through interaction with the atmosphere. We developed a statistical method to generate a wide range of SMB fields that reflect the best understanding of SMB processes. Efficiently sampling the variability of SMB will help us understand sources of uncertainty in ice sheet model projections.
Anjali Sandip, Ludovic Räss, and Mathieu Morlighem
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 899–909, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-899-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-899-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We solve momentum balance for unstructured meshes to predict ice flow for real glaciers using a pseudo-transient method on graphics processing units (GPUs) and compare it to a standard central processing unit (CPU) implementation. We justify the GPU implementation by applying the price-to-performance metric for up to million-grid-point spatial resolutions. This study represents a first step toward leveraging GPU processing power, enabling more accurate polar ice discharge predictions.
Julien Brondex, Kévin Fourteau, Marie Dumont, Pascal Hagenmuller, Neige Calonne, François Tuzet, and Henning Löwe
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 7075–7106, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-7075-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-7075-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Vapor diffusion is one of the main processes governing snowpack evolution, and it must be accounted for in models. Recent attempts to represent vapor diffusion in numerical models have faced several difficulties regarding computational cost and mass and energy conservation. Here, we develop our own finite-element software to explore numerical approaches and enable us to overcome these difficulties. We illustrate the capability of these approaches on established numerical benchmarks.
Matthias Tonnel, Anna Wirbel, Felix Oesterle, and Jan-Thomas Fischer
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 7013–7035, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-7013-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-7013-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Avaframe - the open avalanche framework - provides open-source tools to simulate and investigate snow avalanches. It is utilized for multiple purposes, the two main applications being hazard mapping and scientific research of snow processes. We present the theory, conversion to a computer model, and testing for one of the core modules used for simulations of a particular type of avalanche, the so-called dense-flow avalanches. Tests check and confirm the applicability of the utilized method.
Jordi Bolibar, Facundo Sapienza, Fabien Maussion, Redouane Lguensat, Bert Wouters, and Fernando Pérez
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 6671–6687, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-6671-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-6671-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We developed a new modelling framework combining numerical methods with machine learning. Using this approach, we focused on understanding how ice moves within glaciers, and we successfully learnt a prescribed law describing ice movement for 17 glaciers worldwide as a proof of concept. Our framework has the potential to discover important laws governing glacier processes, aiding our understanding of glacier physics and their contribution to water resources and sea-level rise.
Prateek Gantayat, Alison F. Banwell, Amber A. Leeson, James M. Lea, Dorthe Petersen, Noel Gourmelen, and Xavier Fettweis
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 5803–5823, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-5803-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-5803-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We developed a new supraglacial hydrology model for the Greenland Ice Sheet. This model simulates surface meltwater routing, meltwater drainage, supraglacial lake (SGL) overflow, and formation of lake ice. The model was able to reproduce 80 % of observed lake locations and provides a good match between the observed and modelled temporal evolution of SGLs.
Kevin Hank, Lev Tarasov, and Elisa Mantelli
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 5627–5652, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-5627-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-5627-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Physically meaningful modeling of geophysical system instabilities is numerically challenging, given the potential effects of purely numerical artifacts. Here we explore the sensitivity of ice stream surge activation to numerical and physical model aspects. We find that surge characteristics exhibit a resolution dependency but converge at higher horizontal grid resolutions and are significantly affected by the incorporation of bed thermal and sub-glacial hydrology models.
Yannic Fischler, Thomas Kleiner, Christian Bischof, Jeremie Schmiedel, Roiy Sayag, Raban Emunds, Lennart Frederik Oestreich, and Angelika Humbert
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 5305–5322, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-5305-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-5305-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Water underneath ice sheets affects the motion of glaciers. This study presents a newly developed code, CUAS-MPI, that simulates subglacial hydrology. It is designed for supercomputers and is hence a parallelized code. We measure the performance of this code for simulations of the entire Greenland Ice Sheet and find that the code works efficiently. Moreover, we validated the code to ensure the correctness of the solution. CUAS-MPI opens new possibilities for simulations of ice sheet hydrology.
Julia Kaltenborn, Amy R. Macfarlane, Viviane Clay, and Martin Schneebeli
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 4521–4550, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4521-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4521-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Snow layer segmentation and snow grain classification are essential diagnostic tasks for cryospheric applications. A SnowMicroPen (SMP) can be used to that end; however, the manual classification of its profiles becomes infeasible for large datasets. Here, we evaluate how well machine learning models automate this task. Of the 14 models trained on the MOSAiC SMP dataset, the long short-term memory model performed the best. The findings presented here facilitate and accelerate SMP data analysis.
Johannes Aschauer, Adrien Michel, Tobias Jonas, and Christoph Marty
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 4063–4081, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4063-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4063-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Snow water equivalent is the mass of water stored in a snowpack. Based on exponential settling functions, the empirical snow density model SWE2HS is presented to convert time series of daily snow water equivalent into snow depth. The model has been calibrated with data from Switzerland and validated with independent data from the European Alps. A reference implementation of SWE2HS is available as a Python package.
Eric Keenan, Nander Wever, Jan T. M. Lenaerts, and Brooke Medley
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 3203–3219, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3203-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-3203-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Ice sheets gain mass via snowfall. However, snowfall is redistributed by the wind, resulting in accumulation differences of up to a factor of 5 over distances as short as 5 km. These differences complicate estimates of ice sheet contribution to sea level rise. For this reason, we have developed a new model for estimating wind-driven snow redistribution on ice sheets. We show that, over Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, the model improves estimates of snow accumulation variability.
Sebastian Westermann, Thomas Ingeman-Nielsen, Johanna Scheer, Kristoffer Aalstad, Juditha Aga, Nitin Chaudhary, Bernd Etzelmüller, Simon Filhol, Andreas Kääb, Cas Renette, Louise Steffensen Schmidt, Thomas Vikhamar Schuler, Robin B. Zweigel, Léo Martin, Sarah Morard, Matan Ben-Asher, Michael Angelopoulos, Julia Boike, Brian Groenke, Frederieke Miesner, Jan Nitzbon, Paul Overduin, Simone M. Stuenzi, and Moritz Langer
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 2607–2647, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2607-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2607-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The CryoGrid community model is a new tool for simulating ground temperatures and the water and ice balance in cold regions. It is a modular design, which makes it possible to test different schemes to simulate, for example, permafrost ground in an efficient way. The model contains tools to simulate frozen and unfrozen ground, snow, glaciers, and other massive ice bodies, as well as water bodies.
Alex S. Gardner, Nicole-Jeanne Schlegel, and Eric Larour
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 2277–2302, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2277-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2277-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This is the first description of the open-source Glacier Energy and Mass Balance (GEMB) model. GEMB models the ice sheet and glacier surface–atmospheric energy and mass exchange, as well as the firn state. The model is evaluated against the current state of the art and in situ observations and is shown to perform well.
Yafei Nie, Chengkun Li, Martin Vancoppenolle, Bin Cheng, Fabio Boeira Dias, Xianqing Lv, and Petteri Uotila
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 1395–1425, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-1395-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-1395-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
State-of-the-art Earth system models simulate the observed sea ice extent relatively well, but this is often due to errors in the dynamic and other processes in the simulated sea ice changes cancelling each other out. We assessed the sensitivity of these processes simulated by the coupled ocean–sea ice model NEMO4.0-SI3 to 18 parameters. The performance of the model in simulating sea ice change processes was ultimately improved by adjusting the three identified key parameters.
Varun Sharma, Franziska Gerber, and Michael Lehning
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 719–749, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-719-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-719-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Most current generation climate and weather models have a relatively simplistic description of snow and snow–atmosphere interaction. One reason for this is the belief that including an advanced snow model would make the simulations too computationally demanding. In this study, we bring together two state-of-the-art models for atmosphere (WRF) and snow cover (SNOWPACK) and highlight both the feasibility and necessity of such coupled models to explore underexplored phenomena in the cryosphere.
Anne M. Felden, Daniel F. Martin, and Esmond G. Ng
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 407–425, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-407-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-407-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We present and validate a novel subglacial hydrology model, SUHMO, based on an adaptive mesh refinement framework. We propose the addition of a pseudo-diffusion to recover the wall melting in channels. Computational performance analysis demonstrates the efficiency of adaptive mesh refinement on large-scale hydrologic problems. The adaptive mesh refinement approach will eventually enable better ice bed boundary conditions for ice sheet simulations at a reasonable computational cost.
Dalei Hao, Gautam Bisht, Karl Rittger, Edward Bair, Cenlin He, Huilin Huang, Cheng Dang, Timbo Stillinger, Yu Gu, Hailong Wang, Yun Qian, and L. Ruby Leung
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 75–94, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-75-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-75-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Snow with the highest albedo of land surface plays a vital role in Earth’s surface energy budget and water cycle. This study accounts for the impacts of snow grain shape and mixing state of light-absorbing particles with snow on snow albedo in the E3SM land model. The findings advance our understanding of the role of snow grain shape and mixing state of LAP–snow in land surface processes and offer guidance for improving snow simulations and radiative forcing estimates in Earth system models.
Esteban Alonso-González, Kristoffer Aalstad, Mohamed Wassim Baba, Jesús Revuelto, Juan Ignacio López-Moreno, Joel Fiddes, Richard Essery, and Simon Gascoin
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 9127–9155, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-9127-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-9127-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Snow cover plays an important role in many processes, but its monitoring is a challenging task. The alternative is usually to simulate the snowpack, and to improve these simulations one of the most promising options is to fuse simulations with available observations (data assimilation). In this paper we present MuSA, a data assimilation tool which facilitates the implementation of snow monitoring initiatives, allowing the assimilation of a wide variety of remotely sensed snow cover information.
Vincent Verjans, Alexander A. Robel, Helene Seroussi, Lizz Ultee, and Andrew F. Thompson
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 8269–8293, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-8269-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-8269-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We describe the development of the first large-scale ice sheet model that accounts for stochasticity in a range of processes. Stochasticity allows the impacts of inherently uncertain processes on ice sheets to be represented. This includes climatic uncertainty, as the climate is inherently chaotic. Furthermore, stochastic capabilities also encompass poorly constrained glaciological processes that display strong variability at fine spatiotemporal scales. We present the model and test experiments.
Max Brils, Peter Kuipers Munneke, Willem Jan van de Berg, and Michiel van den Broeke
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 7121–7138, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-7121-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-7121-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Firn covers the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) and can temporarily prevent mass loss. Here, we present the latest version of our firn model, IMAU-FDM, with an application to the GrIS. We improved the density of fallen snow, the firn densification rate and the firn's thermal conductivity. This leads to a higher air content and 10 m temperatures. Furthermore we investigate three case studies and find that the updated model shows greater variability and an increased sensitivity in surface elevation.
Océane Hames, Mahdi Jafari, David Nicholas Wagner, Ian Raphael, David Clemens-Sewall, Chris Polashenski, Matthew D. Shupe, Martin Schneebeli, and Michael Lehning
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6429–6449, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6429-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6429-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This paper presents an Eulerian–Lagrangian snow transport model implemented in the fluid dynamics software OpenFOAM, which we call snowBedFoam 1.0. We apply this model to reproduce snow deposition on a piece of ridged Arctic sea ice, which was produced during the MOSAiC expedition through scan measurements. The model appears to successfully reproduce the enhanced snow accumulation and deposition patterns, although some quantitative uncertainties were shown.
Constantijn J. Berends, Heiko Goelzer, Thomas J. Reerink, Lennert B. Stap, and Roderik S. W. van de Wal
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5667–5688, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5667-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5667-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The rate at which marine ice sheets such as the West Antarctic ice sheet will retreat in a warming climate and ocean is still uncertain. Numerical ice-sheet models, which solve the physical equations that describe the way glaciers and ice sheets deform and flow, have been substantially improved in recent years. Here we present the results of several years of work on IMAU-ICE, an ice-sheet model of intermediate complexity, which can be used to study ice sheets of both the past and the future.
Abby C. Lute, John Abatzoglou, and Timothy Link
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5045–5071, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5045-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5045-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We developed a snow model that can be used to quantify snowpack over large areas with a high degree of spatial detail. We ran the model over the western United States, creating a snow and climate dataset for three time periods. Compared to observations of snowpack, the model captured the key aspects of snow across time and space. The model and dataset will be useful in understanding historical and future changes in snowpack, with relevance to water resources, agriculture, and ecosystems.
Francesco Avanzi, Simone Gabellani, Fabio Delogu, Francesco Silvestro, Edoardo Cremonese, Umberto Morra di Cella, Sara Ratto, and Hervé Stevenin
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 4853–4879, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-4853-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-4853-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Knowing in real time how much snow and glacier ice has accumulated across the landscape has significant implications for water-resource management and flood control. This paper presents a computer model – S3M – allowing scientists and decision makers to predict snow and ice accumulation during winter and the subsequent melt during spring and summer. S3M has been employed for real-world flood forecasting since the early 2000s but is here being made open source for the first time.
Adrian K. Turner, William H. Lipscomb, Elizabeth C. Hunke, Douglas W. Jacobsen, Nicole Jeffery, Darren Engwirda, Todd D. Ringler, and Jonathan D. Wolfe
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 3721–3751, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-3721-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-3721-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We present the dynamical core of the MPAS-Seaice model, which uses a mesh consisting of a Voronoi tessellation with polygonal cells. Such a mesh allows variable mesh resolution in different parts of the domain and the focusing of computational resources in regions of interest. We describe the velocity solver and tracer transport schemes used and examine errors generated by the model in both idealized and realistic test cases and examine the computational efficiency of the model.
Noah D. Smith, Eleanor J. Burke, Kjetil Schanke Aas, Inge H. J. Althuizen, Julia Boike, Casper Tai Christiansen, Bernd Etzelmüller, Thomas Friborg, Hanna Lee, Heather Rumbold, Rachael H. Turton, Sebastian Westermann, and Sarah E. Chadburn
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 3603–3639, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-3603-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-3603-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The Arctic has large areas of small mounds that are caused by ice lifting up the soil. Snow blown by wind gathers in hollows next to these mounds, insulating them in winter. The hollows tend to be wetter, and thus the soil absorbs more heat in summer. The warm wet soil in the hollows decomposes, releasing methane. We have made a model of this, and we have tested how it behaves and whether it looks like sites in Scandinavia and Siberia. Sometimes we get more methane than a model without mounds.
Adrian K. Turner, Kara J. Peterson, and Dan Bolintineanu
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 1953–1970, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1953-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1953-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We developed a technique to remap sea ice tracer quantities between circular discrete element distributions. This is needed for a global discrete element method sea ice model being developed jointly by Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories that has the potential to better utilize newer supercomputers with graphics processing units and better represent sea ice dynamics. This new remapping technique ameliorates the effect of element distortion created by sea ice ridging.
Cited articles
Adcroft, A., Anderson, W., Balaji, V., Blanton, C., Bushuk, M., Dufour, C.
O., Dunne, J. P., Griffies, S. M., Hallberg, R., Harrison, M. J., and Held,
I. M.: The GFDL global ocean and sea ice model OM4.0: Model description and
simulation features, J. Adv. Model. Earth Sy., 11,
3167–3211, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001726, 2019.
Anderberg, M. R.: Cluster analysis for applications: probability and
mathematical statistics: a series of monographs and textbooks, vol. 19,
Academic Press, London, 2014.
Bader, J., Mesquita, M. D., Hodges, K. I., Keenlyside, N., Østerhus, S.,
and Miles, M.: A review on Northern Hemisphere sea-ice, storminess and the
North Atlantic Oscillation: Observations and projected changes, Atmos. Res., 101, 809–834, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2011.04.007,
2011
Barthélemy, A., Goosse, H., Fichefet, T., and Lecomte, O.: On the
sensitivity of Antarctic sea ice model biases to atmospheric forcing
uncertainties, Clim. Dynam., 51, 1–19,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3972-7, 2018.
Bitz, C. M., Holland, M. M., Weaver, A. J., and Eby, M.: Simulating the
ice-thickness distribution in a coupled climate model, J. Geophys. Res.-Oceans, 106, 2441–2463,
https://doi.org/10.1029/1999JC000113, 2001.
Blackport, R., Screen, J. A., van der Wiel, K., and Bintanja, R.: Minimal
influence of reduced Arctic sea ice on coincident cold winters in
mid-latitudes, Nat. Clim. Change, 9, 697–704,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0551-4, 2019.
Brodeau, L., Barnier, B., Treguier, A. M., Penduff, T., and Gulev, S.: An
ERA40-based atmospheric forcing for global ocean circulation models, Ocean Model., 31, 88–104, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2009.10.005,
2010.
Cavalieri, D. J., Parkinson, C. L., Gloersen, P., and Zwally, H. J.: Sea
ice concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS passive microwave
data, version 1, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO, USA, 1996.
Charrad, M., Ghazzali, N., Boiteau, V., and Niknafs, A.: NbClust: An R
Package for Determining the Relevant Number of Clusters in a Data Set,
J. Stat. Softw., 61, 1–36,
https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v061.i06, 2014.
Close, S., Houssais, M. N., and Herbaut, C.: The Arctic winter sea ice
quadrupole revisited, J. Climate, 30, 3157–3167,
https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0506.1, 2017.
Coggins, J. H., McDonald, A. J., and Jolly, B.: Synoptic climatology of the
Ross Ice Shelf and Ross Sea region of Antarctica: k-means clustering and
validation, Int. J. Climatol., 34, 2330–2348,
https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3842, 2014.
Comiso, J. C., Parkinson, C. L., Gersten, R., and Stock, L.: Accelerated
decline in the Arctic sea ice cover, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L01703,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL031972, 2008.
Dai, A. and Trenberth, K. E.: Estimates of freshwater discharge from
continents: Latitudinal and seasonal variations, J. Hydrometeorol., 3, 660–687,
https://doi.org/10.1175/1525-7541(2002)003<0660:EOFDFC>2.0.CO;2,
2002.
Day, J. J., Hargreaves, J. C., Annan, J. D., and Abe-Ouchi, A.: Sources of
multi-decadal variability in Arctic sea ice extent, Environ. Res. Lett., 7, 034011, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/7/3/034011, 2012.
Delworth, T. L., Zeng, F., Vecchi, G. A., Yang, X., Zhang, L., and Zhang,
R.: The North Atlantic Oscillation as a driver of rapid climate change in
the Northern Hemisphere, Nat. Geosci., 9, 509–512,
https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2738, 2016.
Depoorter, M. A., Bamber, J. L., Griggs, J. A., Lenaerts, J. T. M.,
Ligtenberg, S. R., Van den Broeke, M. R., and Moholdt, G.: Calving fluxes
and basal melt rates of Antarctic ice shelves, Nature, 502, 89–92,
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12567, 2013.
Drinkwater, K. F., Miles, M., Medhaug, I., Otterå, O. H., Kristiansen,
T., Sundby, S., and Gao, Y.: The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation: Its
manifestations and impacts with special emphasis on the Atlantic region
north of 60 N, J. Marine Syst., 133, 117–130,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmarsys.2013.11.001, 2014.
Dussin, R., Barnier, B., Brodeau, L., and Molines, J.-M.: The making of the DRAKKAR Forcing Set DFS5, Drakkar/myocean report 01-04-16, Laboratoire de Glaciologie et de Géophysique de l’Environnement, Université de Grenoble, Grenoble, France, available at: https://www.drakkar-ocean.eu/forcing-the-ocean (last access: 19 August 2019), 2016
EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility: Global sea ice
concentration reprocessing dataset 1978–2015 (v1.2), Norwegian and Danish
Meteorological Institutes, available at: https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/8bbde1a8a0ce4a86904a3d7b2b917955 (last access: 23 September 2015), 2015.
Fučkar, N. S., Guemas, V., Johnson, N. C., Massonnet, F., and
Doblas-Reyes, F. J.: Clusters of interannual sea ice variability in the
northern hemisphere, Clim. Dynam., 47, 1527–1543,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2917-2, 2016.
Fučkar, N. S., Guemas, V., Johnson, N. C., and Doblas-Reyes, F. J.:
Dynamical prediction of Arctic sea ice modes of variability, Clim. Dynam., 52, 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4318-9, 2018.
Goessling, H. F., Tietsche, S., Day, J. J., Hawkins, E., and Jung, T.:
Predictability of the Arctic sea ice edge, Geophys. Res. Lett.,
43, 1642–1650, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL067232, 2016.
Graversen, R. G., Mauritsen, T., Drijfhout, S., Tjernström, M., and
Mårtensson, S.: Warm winds from the Pacific caused extensive Arctic
sea-ice melt in summer 2007, Clim. Dynam., 36, 2103–2112,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-010-0809-z, 2011.
Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R., and Friedman, J.: The elements of statistical
learning: data mining, inference, and prediction, Springer Series in
Statistics, Springer New York, NY, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-84858-7,
2009.
Hibler, W. D: Ice dynamics, in: The Geophysics of Sea Ice,
Springer, Boston, MA, 577–640, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5352-0_10, 1986.
Hobbs, W. R. and Raphael, M. N.: The Pacific zonal asymmetry and its
influence on Southern Hemisphere sea ice variability, Antarctic Sci.,
22, 559–571, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102010000283, 2010.
Holland, M. M., Bitz, C. M., Hunke, E. C., Lipscomb, W. H., and Schramm, J.
L.: Influence of the sea ice thickness distribution on polar climate in
CCSM3, J. Climate, 19, 2398–2414,
https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3751.1, 2006.
Holland, P. R. and Kwok, R.: Wind-driven trends in Antarctic sea-ice drift,
Nat. Geosci., 5, 872–875, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1627, 2012.
Hunke, E. C.: Sea ice volume and age: Sensitivity to physical
parameterizations and thickness resolution in the CICE sea ice model, Ocean Model., 82, 45–59, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2014.08.001, 2014.
Hunke, E. C., Lipscomb, W. H., Turner, A. K., Jeffery, N., and Elliott, S.:
CICE: the Los Alamos Sea Ice Model, Documentation and Software User's
Manual, version 5.0., Technical Report LA-CC-06-012, Los Alamos National
Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 2013.
Hurrell, J. W., and Deser, C.: North Atlantic climate variability: the role
of the North Atlantic Oscillation, J. Marine Syst., 79,
231–244, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmarsys.2009.11.002, 2010
Ingvaldsen, R. B., Asplin, L., and Loeng, H.: The seasonal cycle in the
Atlantic transport to the Barents Sea during the years 1997–2001,
Cont. Shelf Res., 24, 1015–1032,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csr.2004.02.011, 2004a.
Ingvaldsen, R. B., Asplin, L., and Loeng, H.: Velocity field of the western
entrance to the Barents Sea, J. Geophys. Res.-Oceans,
109, C03021, https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JC001811, 2004b.
Kohyama, T. and Hartmann, D. L.: Antarctic sea ice response to weather and
climate modes of variability, J. Climate, 29, 721–741,
https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0301.1, 2016.
Large, W. G., and Yeager, S. G. Diurnal to decadal global forcing for ocean
and sea-ice models: the data sets and flux climatologies, NCAR Technical
Note, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 11, 324–336, 2004.
Laxon, S. W., Giles, K. A., Ridout, A. L., Wingham, D. J., Willatt, R., Cullen, R., Kwok, R., Schweiger, A., Zhang, J., Haas, C., and Hendricks, S.: CryoSat-2 estimates of Arctic sea ice thickness and volume, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 732–737, https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50193, 2013.
Lipscomb, W. H.: Remapping the thickness distribution in sea ice models,
J. Geophys. Res.-Oceans, 106, 13989–14000,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2000JC000518, 2001.
Lynch, A. H., Serreze, M. C., Cassano, E. N., Crawford, A. D., and Stroeve,
J.: Linkages between Arctic summer circulation regimes and regional sea ice
anomalies, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 121,
7868–7880, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025164, 2016.
Madec, G.: NEMO ocean engine, Note du Pole de modélisation, Institut
Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL), France, No. 27, ISSN 1288–1619, 2008.
Manubens, N., Caron, L. P., Hunter, A., Bellprat, O., Exarchou, E.,
Fučkar, N. S., Garcia-Serrano, J., Massonnet, F., Ménégoz, M.,
Sicardi, V., and Batté, L.: An R package for climate forecast
verification, Environ. Modell. Softw., 103, 29–42, 2018.
Massonnet, F.: fmassonn/paper-itd-seaice: Accepted paper (Version 1.2.0), Zenodo, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3345604, 2019.
Massonnet, F., Fichefet, T., Goosse, H., Vancoppenolle, M., Mathiot, P., and König Beatty, C.: On the influence of model physics on simulations of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, Cryosphere, 5, 687–699, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-5-687-2011, 2011.
Massonnet, F., Barthélemy, A., Worou, K., Fichefet, T., Vancoppenolle, M., Rousset, C., and Moreno-Chamarro, E.: On the discretization of the ice thickness distribution in the NEMO3.6-LIM3 global ocean–sea ice model, Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 3745–3758, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3745-2019, 2019.
Maykut, G. A. and Untersteiner, N.: Some results from a time-dependent
thermodynamic model of sea ice, J. Geophys. Res., 76,
1550–1575, https://doi.org/10.1029/JC076i006p01550, 1971.
Merino, N., Le Sommer, J., Durand, G., Jourdain, N. C., Madec, G., Mathiot,
P., and Tournadre, J.: Antarctic icebergs melt over the Southern Ocean:
Climatology and impact on sea ice, Ocean Model., 104, 99–110,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2016.05.001, 2016.
Michelangeli, P. A., Vautard, R., and Legras, B.: Weather regimes:
Recurrence and quasi stationarity, J. Atmos. Sci.,
52, 1237–1256,
https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1995)052<1237:WRRAQS>2.0.CO;2,
1995.
Miles, M. W., Divine, D. V., Furevik, T., Jansen, E., Moros, M., and
Ogilvie, A. E.: A signal of persistent Atlantic multidecadal variability in
Arctic sea ice, Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 463–469,
https://doi.org/10.1002/2013GL058084, 2014.
Moreno-Chamarro, E., Ortega, P., and Massonnet, F.: Impact of the ice thickness distribution discretization on the sea ice concentration variability in the NEMO3.6-LIM3 global ocean–sea ice model (Version 1.0) [Data set], Geoscientific Model Development, Zenodo, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3540757, 2019.
Ogi, M. and Wallace, J. M.: Summer minimum Arctic sea ice extent and the
associated summer atmospheric circulation, Geophys. Res. Lett.,
34, L12705, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL029897, 2007.
Olonscheck, D., Mauritsen, T., and Notz, D.: Arctic sea-ice variability is
primarily driven by atmospheric temperature fluctuations, Nat. Geosci.,
12, 430–434, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0363-1, 2019.
Renwick, J. A., Kohout, A., and Dean, S.: Atmospheric forcing of Antarctic
sea ice on intraseasonal time scales, J. Climate, 25,
5962–5975, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00423.1, 2012.
Rigor, I. G., Wallace, J. M., and Colony, R. L.: Response of sea ice to the
Arctic Oscillation, J. Climate, 15, 2648–2663,
https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<2648:ROSITT>2.0.CO;2,
2002.
Rigor, I. G. and Wallace, J. M.: Variations in the age of Arctic sea-ice
and summer sea-ice extent. Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L09401,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GL019492, 2004.
Rossow, W. B., Tselioudis, G., Polak, A., and Jakob, C.: Tropical climate
described as a distribution of weather states indicated by distinct
mesoscale cloud property mixtures. Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L21812,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2005GL024584, 2005.
Rousset, C., Vancoppenolle, M., Madec, G., Fichefet, T., Flavoni, S., Barthélemy, A., Benshila, R., Chanut, J., Levy, C., Masson, S., and Vivier, F.: The Louvain-La-Neuve sea ice model LIM3.6: global and regional capabilities, Geosci. Model Dev., 8, 2991–3005, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-2991-2015, 2015.
Schlichtholz, P.: Influence of oceanic heat variability on sea ice anomalies
in the Nordic Seas, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L05705,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GL045894, 2011.
Screen, J. A.: Influence of Arctic sea ice on European summer precipitation,
Environ. Res. Lett., 8, 044015,
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044015, 2013.
Screen, J. A., Simmonds, I., and Keay, K.: Dramatic interannual changes of
perennial Arctic sea ice linked to abnormal summer storm activity, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 116, D15105,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD015847, 2011.
Serreze, M. C. and Stroeve, J.: Arctic sea ice trends, variability and
implications for seasonal ice forecasting, Philos. T. R. Soc. A, 373,
20140159, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0159, 2015.
Sonnewald, M., Wunsch, C., and Heimbach, P.: Unsupervised learning reveals geography of global ocean dynamical regions, Earth Space Sci., 6,
784–794, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EA000519, 2019.
Storch, H. and Zwiers, F.: Statistical analysis in climate research,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612336, 1999.
Thorndike, A. S., Rothrock, D. A., Maykut, G. A., and Colony, R.: The
thickness distribution of sea ice, J. Geophys. Res., 80,
4501–4513, https://doi.org/10.1029/JC080i033p04501, 1975.
Titchner, H. A. and Rayner, N. A.: The Met Office Hadley Centre sea ice
and sea surface temperature data set, version 2: 1. Sea ice concentrations,
J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos, 119, 2864–2889,
https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JD020316, 2014.
Ukita, J., Honda, M., Nakamura, H., Tachibana, Y., Cavalieri, D. J.,
Parkinson, C. L., Koide, H., and Yamamoto, K.: Northern Hemisphere sea ice
variability: Lag structure and its implications, Tellus A, 59, 261–272,
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0870.2006.00223.x, 2007.
Ungermann, M., Tremblay, L. B., Martin, T., and Losch, M.: Impact of the
ice strength formulation on the performance of a sea ice thickness
distribution model in the Arctic, J. Geophys. Res.-Oceans,
122, 2090–2107, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JC012128, 2017.
Uotila, P., Iovino, D., Vancoppenolle, M., Lensu, M., and Rousset, C.: Comparing sea ice, hydrography and circulation between NEMO3.6 LIM3 and LIM2, Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 1009–1031, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1009-2017, 2017.
Venegas, S. A. and Mysak, L. A.: Is there a dominant timescale of natural
climate variability in the Arctic?, J. Climate, 13, 3412–3434,
https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2000)013<3412:ITADTO<E2.0.CO;2,
2000.
Wang, J., Zhang, J., Watanabe, E., Ikeda, M., Mizobata, K., Walsh, J. E.,
Bai, X., and Wu, B.: Is the Dipole Anomaly a major driver to record lows in
Arctic summer sea ice extent?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L05706,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL036706, 2009.
Wilks, D. S.: Statistical methods in the atmospheric sciences, Vol. 100,
Academic Press, London, 2011.
Woodgate, R. A., Weingartner, T., and Lindsay, R.: The 2007 Bering Strait
oceanic heat flux and anomalous Arctic sea-ice retreat, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L01602, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL041621, 2010.
Yuan, X. and Li, C.: Climate modes in southern high latitudes and their
impacts on Antarctic sea ice, J. Geophys. Res.-Oceans,
113, C06S91, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JC004067, 2008.
Zweng, M. M, Reagan, J. R., Antonov, J. I., Locarnini, R. A., Mishonov, A. V., Boyer, T. P., Garcia, H. E., Baranova, O. K., Johnson, D. R., Seidov, D., Biddle, M. M.: World Ocean Atlas 2013, Volume 2: Salinity, edited by: Levitus, S.,
Mishonov, A. (technical ed.), NOAA Atlas NESDIS 74, 39 pp., 2013.
Short summary
Climate models need to capture sea ice complexity to represent it realistically. Here we assess how distributing sea ice in discrete thickness categories impacts how sea ice variability is simulated in the NEMO3.6–LIM3 model. Simulations and satellite observations are compared by using k-means clustering of sea ice concentration in winter and summer between 1979 and 2014 at both poles. Little improvements in the modeled sea ice lead us to recommend using the standard number of five categories.
Climate models need to capture sea ice complexity to represent it realistically. Here we assess...
Special issue