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1. Water mass transformation variability in the Weddell Sea in Ocean Reanalyses

   https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-129  

   Bailey, Shanice Tseng ; Jones, Spencer ; Abernathey, Ryan Patrick ; Gordon, Arnold L. ; Yuan, Xiaojun ( April 2022 , Ocean science discussions)

   This study investigates the variability of water mass transformation (WMT) within the Weddell Gyre (WG). The WG serves as a pivotal site for the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) and ocean ventilation because it is the primary origin of the largest volume of water mass in the global ocean, Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW). Recent mooring data suggest substantial seasonal and interannual variability of AABW properties exiting the WG, and studies have linked the variability to the large-scale climate forcings affecting wind stress in the WG region. However, the specific thermodynamic mechanisms that link variability in surface forcings to variability in water mass transformations and AABW export remain unclear. This study explores WMT variability via WMT volume budgets derived from Walin’s classic WMT framework, using three state-of-the-art, data-assimilating ocean reanalyses: Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean state estimate (ECCOv4), Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE) and Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA). From the model outputs, we diagnose a closed form of the water mass budget for AABW that explicitly accounts for transport across the WG boundary, surface forcing, interior mixing, and numerical mixing. We examine the annual mean climatology of the WMT budget terms, the seasonal climatology, and finally the interannualmore »variability. In ECCO and SOSE, we see strong interannual variability in AABW volume budget. In SOSE, we find an accelerating loss of AABW, driven largely by interior mixing and changes in surface salt fluxes. ECCO shows a similar trend during a 3-yr time period beyond what is covered in SOSE, but also reveals such trends to be part of interannual variability over a much longer time period. Overall, ECCO provides the most useful timeseries for understanding the processes and mechanisms that drive WMT and export variability. SODA, in contrast, displays unphysically large variability in AABW volume, which we attribute to its data assimilation scheme. We examine correlations between the WMT budgets and large-scale climate indices, including ENSO and SAM; no strong relationships emerge, suggesting that these reanalysis products may not reproduce the AABW export pathways and mechanisms hypothesized from observations.« less
2. A new state-dependent parameterization for the free drift of sea ice

   https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-533-2022  

   Brunette, Charles ; Tremblay, L. Bruno ; Newton, Robert ( January 2022 , The Cryosphere)

   Abstract. Free-drift estimates of sea ice motion are necessary to produce a seamless observational record combining buoy and satellite-derived sea ice motionvectors. We develop a new parameterization for the free drift of sea ice based on wind forcing, wind turning angle, sea ice state variables(thickness and concentration), and estimates of the ocean currents. Given the fact that the spatial distribution of the wind–ice–ocean transfercoefficient has a similar structure to that of the spatial distribution of sea ice thickness, we take the standard free-drift equation and introducea wind–ice–ocean transfer coefficient that scales linearly with ice thickness. Results show a mean bias error of −0.5 cm s−1(low-speed bias) and a root-mean-square error of 5.1 cm s−1, considering daily buoy drift data as truth. This represents a 35 %reduction of the error on drift speed compared to the free-drift estimates used in the Polar Pathfinder dataset (Tschudi et al., 2019b). Thethickness-dependent transfer coefficient provides an improved seasonality and long-term trend of the sea ice drift speed, with a minimum (maximum)drift speed in May (October), compared to July (January) for the constant transfer coefficient parameterizations which simply follow the peak inmean surface wind stresses. Over the 1979–2019 period, the trend in sea ice drift in this new model is +0.45 cm s−1 permore »decadecompared with +0.39 cm s−1 per decade from the buoy observations, whereas there is essentially no trend in a free-driftparameterization with a constant transfer coefficient (−0.09 cm s−1 per decade) or the Polar Pathfinder free-drift input data(−0.01 cm s−1 per decade). The optimal wind turning angle obtained from a least-squares fitting is 25∘, resulting in a meanerror and a root-mean-square error of +3 and 42∘ on the direction of the drift, respectively. The ocean current estimates obtained from theminimization procedure resolve key large-scale features such as the Beaufort Gyre and Transpolar Drift Stream and are in good agreement with oceanstate estimates from the ECCO, GLORYS, and PIOMAS ice–ocean reanalyses, as well as geostrophic currents from dynamical ocean topography, with aroot-mean-square difference of 2.4, 2.9, 2.6, and 3.8 cm s−1, respectively. Finally, a repeat of the analysis on two sub-sections of thetime series (pre- and post-2000) clearly shows the acceleration of the Beaufort Gyre (particularly along the Alaskan coastline) and an expansion ofthe gyre in the post-2000s, concurrent with a thinning of the sea ice cover and the observed acceleration of the ice drift speed and oceancurrents. This new dataset is publicly available for complementing merged observation-based sea ice drift datasets that include satellite and buoydrift records.« less
3. Basal mass balance and prevalence of ice tongues in the Western ross sea

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2023.1057761  

   Gomez-Fell, Rodrigo ; Marsh, Oliver J. ; Rack, Wolfgang ; Wild, Christian T. ; Purdie, Heather ( March 2023 , Frontiers in Earth Science)

   Ice tongues at the fringes of the Antarctic ice sheet lose mass primarily through both basal melting and calving. They are sensitive to ocean conditions which can weaken the ice both mechanically or through thinning. Ice tongues, which are laterally unconfined, are likely to be particularly sensitive to ocean-induced stresses. Here we examine ice tongues in the Western Ross Sea, by looking into the factors affecting their stability. We calculate the basal mass change of twelve Antarctic ice tongues using a flux gate approach, deriving thickness from ICESat-2 height measurements and ice surface velocities from Sentinel-1 feature-tracking over the same period (October 2018 to December 2021). The basal mass balance ranges between −0.14 ± 0.07 m yr −1 and −1.50 ± 1.2 m yr −1 . The average basal mass change for all the ice tongues is −0.82 ± 0.68 m of ice yr −1 . Low values of basal melt suggest a stable mass balance condition in this region, with low thermal ocean forcing, as other studies have shown. We found a heterogeneous basal melt pattern with no latitudinal gradient and no clear driver in basal melt indicating that local variables are important in the persistence of ice tongues in the absence of amore »strong oceanographic melting force. Moreover, thanks to the temporal resolution of the data we were able to resolve the seasonal variability of Drygalski and Aviator Ice Tongues, the two largest ice tongues studied.« less
4. Are the Near-Antarctic Easterly Winds Weakening in Response to Enhancement of the Southern Annular Mode?

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0402.1  

   Hazel, Julia E. ; Stewart, Andrew L. ( March 2019 , Journal of Climate)

   Previous studies have highlighted the sensitivity of the Southern Ocean circulation to the strengthening, poleward-shifting westerlies, associated with the increasingly positive southern annular mode (SAM). The impacts of the SAM have been hypothesized to weaken momentum input to the ocean from the easterly winds around the Antarctic margins. Using ERA-Interim data, the authors show that the circumpolar-averaged easterly wind stress has not weakened over the past 3–4 decades, and, if anything, has slightly strengthened by around 7%. However, there has been a substantial increase in the seasonality of the easterlies, with a weakening of the easterly winds during austral summer and a strengthening during winter. A similar trend in the seasonality of the easterlies is found in three other reanalysis products that compare favorably with Antarctic meteorological observations. The authors associate the strengthening of the easterly winds during winter with an increase in the pressure gradient between the coast and the pole. Although the trend in the overall easterly wind strength is small, the change in the seasonal cycle may be expected to reduce the shoreward Ekman transport of summer surface waters and also to admit more warm Circumpolar Deep Water to the continental shelf in summer. Changes in themore »seasonal cycle of the near-coastal winds may also project onto seasonal formation and export of sea ice, fluctuations in the strengths of the Weddell and Ross Gyres, and seasonal export of Antarctic Bottom Water from the continental shelf.

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5. Effects of Increasing the Category Resolution of the Sea Ice Thickness Distribution in a Coupled Climate Model on Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Mean State

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019044  

   Smith, Madison M. ; Holland, Marika M. ; Petty, Alek A. ; Light, Bonnie ; Bailey, David A. ( October 2022 , Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans)

   Many modern sea ice models used in global climate models represent the subgrid‐scale heterogeneity in sea ice thickness with an ice thickness distribution (ITD), which improves model realism by representing the significant impact of the high spatial heterogeneity of sea ice thickness on thermodynamic and dynamic processes. Most models default to five thickness categories. However, little has been done to explore the effects of the resolution of this distribution (number of categories) on sea‐ice feedbacks in a coupled model framework and resulting representation of the sea ice mean state. Here, we explore this using sensitivity experiments in CESM2 with the standard 5 ice thickness categories and 15 ice thickness categories. Increasing the resolution of the ITD in a run with preindustrial climate forcing results in substantially thicker Arctic sea ice year‐round. Analyses show that this is a result of the ITD influence on ice strength. With 15 ITD categories, weaker ice occurs for the same average thickness, resulting in a higher fraction of ridged sea ice. In contrast, the higher resolution of thin ice categories results in enhanced heat conduction and bottom growth and leads to only somewhat increased winter Antarctic sea ice volume. The spatial resolution of themore »ICESat‐2 satellite mission provides a new opportunity to compare model outputs with observations of seasonal evolution of the ITD in the Arctic (ICESat‐2; 2018–2021). Comparisons highlight significant differences from the ITD modeled with both runs over this period, likely pointing to underlying issues contributing to the representation of average thickness.

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