Fragmentation and melt of Arctic sea ice

北极海冰的破碎和融化

基本信息

批准号：
NE/V011693/1
负责人：
Daniel Feltham
金额：
$ 63.85万
依托单位：
University of Reading
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2022
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2022 至无数据
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FV011693%2F1
关键词：
Fragmentation melt Arctic sea ice

项目摘要

Arctic sea ice is an important agent, and indicator, of climate change; the rapid decline of sea ice in past decades has been a wake-up call to scientists, policy-makers, and the general public. This retreat of the sea ice has led to growth of trans-Arctic shipping and plans to extract minerals and fossil fuels from the ocean floor. The latest assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that it was likely that the Arctic would become reliably ice-free by 2050 assuming greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. However, the climate simulations used by the IPCC often fail to realistically capture large scale properties of the Arctic sea ice, such as the extent, variability and recent trends. Therefore, there is a need to improve simulations of Arctic sea ice to provide better understanding of the recent observed changes and credible projections of the future to help assess risks and opportunities and inform important policy decisions about adaptation and mitigation.Observations of the Arctic have improved in recent years: new satellites are measuring sea ice thickness and topography from space, and substantial recent and planned field programmes are contributing to our knowledge of the in situ processes controlling the evolution of the ice cover. These observations reveal not only that the extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cover is reducing in all seasons, but also show us how the ice is decreasing. In particular, recent observations demonstrate how surface melt ponds weaken the ice, fragmenting it into many floes. No operational environmental or climate model of sea ice evolution takes into account the processes of ice fragmentation or the impact of having a range of different sea ice floe sizes. Sea ice floe size affects lateral melting, air to ocean momentum transfer, rheology, and wave-ice interaction. Idealised model studies demonstrate that accounting for floe fragmentation has a leading order impact on the spatial distribution of sea ice and decreases its overall extent and volume. Because existing climate models do not contain this physics, their utility for understanding and predicting variability and change in the Arctic is compromised. This leads to impairment of climate model accuracy at lower latitudes also, due to errors in meridional atmospheric and oceanic circulations, as well as ice export from the Arctic. This proposal will determine the role of sea ice fragmentation in the accelerated retreat of Arctic sea ice. Using a combination of new and emerging observations, new theory and process modelling, we will build fundamental understanding of sea ice fragmentation. We will a) develop a high fidelity, high resolution model of sea ice thermodynamic and mechanical evolution and use this, and observations, to explore sea ice fragmentation, b) build parameterisations of fragmentation processes, including the first model of fragmentation by melt, and incorporate these into the sea ice component of climate and weather models, and c) use ice-ocean and fully coupled climate models to identify the contribution of fragmentation to: rapid ice loss over past decades, projections of ice loss in the coming decades, and creating skill for operational ice forecasts now.In addition to the scientific outcomes, the proposed work will result in a new sea ice fragmentation module delivered to climate and weather modelling groups: within the UK, the Met Office, the National Oceanography Centre, the British Antarctic Survey, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

北极海冰是气候变化的重要因素和指标；过去几十年海冰的迅速减少给科学家、政策制定者和公众敲响了警钟。海冰的退缩导致了跨北极航运的增长，并计划从海底提取矿物和化石燃料。政府间气候变化专门委员会 (IPCC) 的最新评估得出的结论是，假设温室气体排放继续增加，到 2050 年，北极可能会可靠地无冰。然而，IPCC 使用的气候模拟往往无法真实地捕捉北极海冰的大尺度特性，例如范围、变化和近期趋势。因此，有必要改进对北极海冰的模拟，以更好地了解最近观测到的变化和对未来的可靠预测，以帮助评估风险和机遇，并为有关适应和减缓的重要政策决策提供信息。对北极的观测已经改善近年来：新卫星正在从太空测量海冰厚度和地形，最近和计划中的大量实地计划正在有助于我们了解控制冰盖演变的原位过程。这些观测结果不仅揭示了北极冰盖的范围和厚度在所有季节都在减少，而且还向我们展示了冰是如何减少的。特别是，最近的观察表明，表面融化的池塘如何削弱冰，将其破碎成许多浮冰。海冰演化的运行环境或气候模型没有考虑到冰的破碎过程或一系列不同海冰浮冰尺寸的影响。海冰浮冰的大小影响横向融化、空气到海洋的动量传递、流变性和波冰相互作用。理想化模型研究表明，考虑浮冰破碎对海冰的空间分布具有主导影响，并减少其总体范围和体积。由于现有的气候模型不包含这种物理原理，因此它们在理解和预测北极变化和变化方面的效用受到了影响。由于经向大气和海洋环流以及北极冰出口的误差，这也会导致低纬度地区气候模型的准确性受损。该提案将确定海冰破碎在北极海冰加速消退中的作用。结合新出现的观测、新理论和过程建模，我们将建立对海冰破碎的基本了解。我们将a）开发高保真度、高分辨率的海冰热力学和机械演化模型，并利用该模型和观测结果来探索海冰破碎，b）建立破碎过程的参数化，包括第一个融化破碎模型，以及将这些纳入气候和天气模型的海冰部分，以及 c) 使用冰-海洋和完全耦合的气候模型来确定碎裂对以下方面的贡献：过去几十年冰的快速流失，未来几十年冰流失的预测，以及创造操作冰的技能除了科学成果外，拟议的工作还将向气候和天气建模小组提供一个新的海冰破碎模块：英国、英国气象局、国家海洋学中心、英国南极调查局和欧洲中期天气预报中心。

项目成果

期刊论文数量（5）

专著数量（0）

科研奖励数量（0）

会议论文数量（0）

专利数量（0）

Summer sea ice floe size distribution in the Arctic: High-resolution optical satellite imagery and model evaluation

北极夏季海冰浮冰尺寸分布：高分辨率光学卫星图像和模型评估

DOI：
http://dx.10.5194/tc-2022-130
发表时间：
2022
期刊：
影响因子：
0
作者：
Wang Y
通讯作者：
Wang Y

Sea ice floe size: its impact on pan-Arctic and local ice mass and required model complexity

海浮冰尺寸：对泛北极和当地冰块的影响以及所需模型的复杂性

DOI：
http://dx.10.5194/tc-16-2565-2022
发表时间：
2022
期刊：
The Cryosphere
影响因子：
0
作者：
Bateson A
通讯作者：
Bateson A

Multi-scale satellite observations of Arctic sea ice: new insight into the life cycle of the floe size distribution.

北极海冰的多尺度卫星观测：对浮冰尺寸分布生命周期的新见解。

DOI：
http://dx.10.1098/rsta.2021.0259
发表时间：
2022
期刊：
Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
影响因子：
0
作者：
Hwang B
通讯作者：
Hwang B

Floe size distribution data from Multi-scale satellite observations of Arctic sea ice: new insight into the life cycle of the floe size distribution

来自北极海冰多尺度卫星观测的浮体尺寸分布数据：对浮体尺寸分布生命周期的新见解