Wave-ice breakup model for inclusion in CICE

Published: 2016-08-30

A numerical model of ocean wave interactions with Antarctic sea ice cover, including: (i) attenuation of wave energy due to the ice cover (based on the empirical model of Meylan, Bennetts, Kohout, 2014, Geophys Res Lett, doi:10.1002/2014GL060809); and (ii) breakup of the ice cover into smaller floes due to strains imposed by wave motion (based on the theory of Williams et al, 2013, Ocean Model., doi:10.1016/j.ocemod.2013.05.010). The model is coded in FORTRAN90 for use as a module in a standalone version of the CICEv4.1 sea ice model (http://oceans11.lanl.gov/trac/CICE). It requires incident wave forcing to be specified at some constant latitude outside the ice cover, which can be user chosen or imported from data files (e.g. data given by Wavewatch III hindcasts, see http://doi.org/10.4225/08/523168703DCC5). Modifications to the existing CICE routines are given to allow integration of the broken floe sizes into its lateral melting scheme, and for incorporation of a floe bonding scheme. Bennetts, O'Farrell and Uotila (2017 - Brief communication: Impacts of ocean-wave-induced breakup of Antarctic sea ice via thermodynamics in a stand-alone version of the CICE sea-ice model) use the model to study the impact of wave-induced ice breakup on model predictions of the concentration and volume of Antarctic sea ice.