Articles | Volume 8, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-1577-2015
© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Special issue:
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-1577-2015
© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Development and technical paper
| 
28 May 2015
Development and technical paper |
| 28 May 2015
A high-resolution ocean and sea-ice modelling system for the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans
Service météorologique du Canada, Environnement Canada, Dorval, QC, Canada
S. Higginson
Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, NS, Canada
R. Bourdallé-Badie
Mercator Océan, Toulouse, France
Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, NS, Canada
F. Roy
Recherche en Prévision Environnementale, Environnement Canada, Dorval, QC, Canada
G. C. Smith
Recherche en Prévision Environnementale, Environnement Canada, Dorval, QC, Canada
J.-F. Lemieux
Recherche en Prévision Environnementale, Environnement Canada, Dorval, QC, Canada
G. Garric
Mercator Océan, Toulouse, France
F. Davidson
Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. John's, NL, Canada
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We present the latest version of the CICE model. It solves equations that describe the dynamics and the growth and melt of sea ice. To do so, the domain is divided into grid cells and variables are positioned at specific locations in the cells. A new implementation (C-grid) is presented, with the velocity located on cell edges. Compared to the previous B-grid, the C-grid allows for a natural coupling with some oceanic and atmospheric models. It also allows for ice transport in narrow channels.
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We use a sea ice model to reproduce ice growth observations from two buoys deployed on coastal sea ice and analyze the improvements brought by new physics that represent the presence of saline liquid water in the ice interior. We find that the new physics with default parameters degrade the model performance, with overly rapid ice growth and overly early snow flooding on top of the ice. The performance is largely improved by simple modifications to the ice growth and snow-flooding algorithms.
Jean-Philippe Paquin, François Roy, Gregory C. Smith, Sarah MacDermid, Ji Lei, Frédéric Dupont, Youyu Lu, Stephanne Taylor, Simon St-Onge-Drouin, Hauke Blanken, Michael Dunphy, and Nancy Soontiens
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This paper present the Coastal Ice-Ocean Prediction System implemented operationally at Environment and climate change Canada. The objective is to enhance the numerical guidance in coastal areas to support electronic navigation and response to environmental emergencies in the aquatic environment. Model evaluation against observations shows improvements for most surface ocean variables in the coastal system compared to current coarser-resolution operational systems.
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Gordana Lazin, Michael Patrick Casey, Rémi Mathieu Daigle, Patrick John David Upson, Youyu Lu, Ryan Ronald Edward Stanley, and Hui Shen
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Monitoring ecosystems across an expanding conservation footprint is increasingly challenging. As ocean conditions shape marine living spaces, their monitoring can provide a scalable solution. Temperature data from ocean models and observations are used to derive indicators linking physical conditions to species and ecosystems. Results reveal sustained warming and shifting habitat suitability and are delivered through Digital Twin Ocean application to support adaptive conservation management.
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Paolo Mauriello, Gregory C. Smith, Andrea Storto, and Chunxue Yang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2257, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2257, 2026
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We studied how well ocean models represent ocean features by comparing them with satellite data. The high resolution model GLORYS12V1 matches observations better than GLORYS2V4, especially for strong features, but it also detects more weak ones, increasing false detections. Satellite data from DUACS and SWOT MIOST Science improve the evaluation and help compare models and observations. These results show that higher detail is important to better understand ocean dynamics.
Damien Ringeisen, Bruno Tremblay, Jean-Francois Lemieux, and Martin Losch
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Freshwater fluxes, despite their importance, are often poorly represented in ocean models. The impact of river discharge is evaluated from the Water Mass Balance approach, combining gravimetry and atmospheric reanalyses data. These estimates are assessed against river gauges, highlighting good agreement over South American rivers. Compared to climatological data, when used as inputs for ocean model simulations, this technique improves salinity and upper ocean circulation representation.
Violaine Piton, Hervé Giordani, Romain Bourdalle-Badie, and Charles Pelletier
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-640, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-640, 2026
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Vertical ocean mixing regulates climate by transferring heat from the surface to depth. Because most models use simplified schemes, they often misrepresent convection and bias temperatures and air–sea heat exchange. We test a new mixing scheme in a global ocean model. It better captures daily tropical surface mixing and deep winter convection at high latitudes, reduces upper-ocean temperature biases, and alters surface heat balance, improving climate model realism.
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Li Zhai, Youyu Lu, Haiyan Wang, Gilles Garric, and Simon Van Gennip
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Statistics of marine heatwaves and cold spells in the water column of the Northwest Atlantic during 1993–2023 are derived using a global ocean reanalysis product. On the Scotian Shelf, temperatures and parameters of extreme events present layered structures in the water column, long-term trends, and sharp increases around 2012. Quantification of extreme warm (cold) conditions in 2012 (1998) supports previous studies on the impacts of these conditions on several marine life species.
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Sea ice forms a thin boundary between the ocean and the atmosphere, with complex, crust-like dynamics and ever-changing networks of sea ice leads and ridges. Statistics of these dynamical features are often used to evaluate sea ice models. Here, we present a new pan-Arctic dataset of sea ice deformations derived from satellite imagery, from 1 September 2017 to 31 August 2023. We discuss the dataset coverage and some limitations associated with uncertainties in the computed values.
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The variability in the manometric sea level (i.e. the sea level mass component) in three ocean basins is investigated in this study using three different methods (reanalyses, gravimetry, and altimetry in combination with in situ observations). We identify the emerging long-term signals, the consistency of the datasets, and the influence of large-scale climate modes on the regional manometric sea level variations at both seasonal and interannual timescales.
Antonio Sánchez-Román, Flora Gues, Romain Bourdalle-Badie, Marie-Isabelle Pujol, Ananda Pascual, and Marie Drévillon
State Planet, 4-osr8, 4, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-4-osr8-4-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-4-osr8-4-2024, 2024
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This study investigates the changing pattern of the Gulf Stream over the last 3 decades as observed in the altimetric record (1993–2022). Changes in the Gulf Stream path have an effect on its speed (and associated energy) and also on waters transported towards the subpolar North Atlantic, impacting Europe's climate. The observed shifts in the paths seem to be linked to variability in the North Atlantic Ocean during winter that may play an important role.
Jean-François Lemieux, William H. Lipscomb, Anthony Craig, David A. Bailey, Elizabeth C. Hunke, Philippe Blain, Till A. S. Rasmussen, Mats Bentsen, Frédéric Dupont, David Hebert, and Richard Allard
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6703–6724, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6703-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6703-2024, 2024
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We present the latest version of the CICE model. It solves equations that describe the dynamics and the growth and melt of sea ice. To do so, the domain is divided into grid cells and variables are positioned at specific locations in the cells. A new implementation (C-grid) is presented, with the velocity located on cell edges. Compared to the previous B-grid, the C-grid allows for a natural coupling with some oceanic and atmospheric models. It also allows for ice transport in narrow channels.
Mathieu Plante, Jean-François Lemieux, L. Bruno Tremblay, Adrienne Tivy, Joey Angnatok, François Roy, Gregory Smith, Frédéric Dupont, and Adrian K. Turner
The Cryosphere, 18, 1685–1708, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1685-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1685-2024, 2024
Short summary
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We use a sea ice model to reproduce ice growth observations from two buoys deployed on coastal sea ice and analyze the improvements brought by new physics that represent the presence of saline liquid water in the ice interior. We find that the new physics with default parameters degrade the model performance, with overly rapid ice growth and overly early snow flooding on top of the ice. The performance is largely improved by simple modifications to the ice growth and snow-flooding algorithms.
Oreste Marquis, Bruno Tremblay, Jean-François Lemieux, and Mohammed Islam
The Cryosphere, 18, 1013–1032, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1013-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1013-2024, 2024
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We developed a standard viscous–plastic sea-ice model based on the numerical framework called smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The model conforms to the theory within an error of 1 % in an idealized ridging experiment, and it is able to simulate stable ice arches. However, the method creates a dispersive plastic wave speed. The framework is efficient to simulate fractures and can take full advantage of parallelization, making it a good candidate to investigate sea-ice material properties.
Stefania A. Ciliberti, Enrique Alvarez Fanjul, Jay Pearlman, Kirsten Wilmer-Becker, Pierre Bahurel, Fabrice Ardhuin, Alain Arnaud, Mike Bell, Segolene Berthou, Laurent Bertino, Arthur Capet, Eric Chassignet, Stefano Ciavatta, Mauro Cirano, Emanuela Clementi, Gianpiero Cossarini, Gianpaolo Coro, Stuart Corney, Fraser Davidson, Marie Drevillon, Yann Drillet, Renaud Dussurget, Ghada El Serafy, Katja Fennel, Marcos Garcia Sotillo, Patrick Heimbach, Fabrice Hernandez, Patrick Hogan, Ibrahim Hoteit, Sudheer Joseph, Simon Josey, Pierre-Yves Le Traon, Simone Libralato, Marco Mancini, Pascal Matte, Angelique Melet, Yasumasa Miyazawa, Andrew M. Moore, Antonio Novellino, Andrew Porter, Heather Regan, Laia Romero, Andreas Schiller, John Siddorn, Joanna Staneva, Cecile Thomas-Courcoux, Marina Tonani, Jose Maria Garcia-Valdecasas, Jennifer Veitch, Karina von Schuckmann, Liying Wan, John Wilkin, and Romane Zufic
State Planet, 1-osr7, 2, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-1-osr7-2-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-1-osr7-2-2023, 2023
Benjamin Richaud, Katja Fennel, Eric C. J. Oliver, Michael D. DeGrandpre, Timothée Bourgeois, Xianmin Hu, and Youyu Lu
The Cryosphere, 17, 2665–2680, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-2665-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-2665-2023, 2023
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Sea ice is a dynamic carbon reservoir. Its seasonal growth and melt modify the carbonate chemistry in the upper ocean, with consequences for the Arctic Ocean carbon sink. Yet, the importance of this process is poorly quantified. Using two independent approaches, this study provides new methods to evaluate the error in air–sea carbon flux estimates due to the lack of biogeochemistry in ice in earth system models. Those errors range from 5 % to 30 %, depending on the model and climate projection.
Jean-Philippe Paquin, François Roy, Gregory C. Smith, Sarah MacDermid, Ji Lei, Frédéric Dupont, Youyu Lu, Stephanne Taylor, Simon St-Onge-Drouin, Hauke Blanken, Michael Dunphy, and Nancy Soontiens
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-42, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-42, 2023
Preprint withdrawn
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This paper present the Coastal Ice-Ocean Prediction System implemented operationally at Environment and climate change Canada. The objective is to enhance the numerical guidance in coastal areas to support electronic navigation and response to environmental emergencies in the aquatic environment. Model evaluation against observations shows improvements for most surface ocean variables in the coastal system compared to current coarser-resolution operational systems.
Frédéric Dupont, Dany Dumont, Jean-François Lemieux, Elie Dumas-Lefebvre, and Alain Caya
The Cryosphere, 16, 1963–1977, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1963-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1963-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
In some shallow seas, grounded ice ridges contribute to stabilizing and maintaining a landfast ice cover. A scheme has already proposed where the keel thickness varies linearly with the mean thickness. Here, we extend the approach by taking into account the ice thickness and bathymetry distributions. The probabilistic approach shows a reasonably good agreement with observations and previous grounding scheme while potentially offering more physical insights into the formation of landfast ice.
Joris Pianezze, Jonathan Beuvier, Cindy Lebeaupin Brossier, Guillaume Samson, Ghislain Faure, and Gilles Garric
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 1301–1324, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-1301-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-1301-2022, 2022
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Most numerical weather and oceanic prediction systems do not consider ocean–atmosphere feedback during forecast, and this can lead to significant forecast errors, notably in cases of severe situations. A new high-resolution coupled ocean–atmosphere system is presented in this paper. This forecast-oriented system, based on current regional operational systems and evaluated using satellite and in situ observations, shows that the coupling improves both atmospheric and oceanic forecasts.
Florent Garnier, Sara Fleury, Gilles Garric, Jérôme Bouffard, Michel Tsamados, Antoine Laforge, Marion Bocquet, Renée Mie Fredensborg Hansen, and Frédérique Remy
The Cryosphere, 15, 5483–5512, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5483-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5483-2021, 2021
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Snow depth data are essential to monitor the impacts of climate change on sea ice volume variations and their impacts on the climate system. For that purpose, we present and assess the altimetric snow depth product, computed in both hemispheres from CryoSat-2 and SARAL satellite data. The use of these data instead of the common climatology reduces the sea ice thickness by about 30 cm over the 2013–2019 period. These data are also crucial to argue for the launch of the CRISTAL satellite mission.
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Short summary
1/12th degree resolution runs of Arctic--Atlantic were compared for the period 2003-2009. We found good representation of sea surface height and of its statistics; model temperature and salinity in general agreement with in situ measurements, but upper ocean properties in Beaufort Sea are challenging; distribution of concentration and volume of sea ice is improved when slowing down the ice and further improvements require better initial conditions and modifications to mixing.
1/12th degree resolution runs of Arctic--Atlantic were compared for the period 2003-2009. We...
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