Advances in Modeling Interactions Between Sea Ice and Ocean Surface Waves

Abstract

Abstract Recent field programs have highlighted the importance of the composite nature of the sea ice mosaic to the climate system. Accordingly, we previously developed a process‐based prognostic model that captures key characteristics of the sea ice floe size distribution and its evolution subject to melting, freezing, new ice formation, welding, and fracture by ocean surface waves. Here we build upon this earlier work, demonstrating a new coupling between the sea ice model and ocean surface waves and a new physically based parameterization for new ice formation in open water. The experiments presented here are the first to include two‐way interactions between prognostically evolving waves and sea ice on a global domain. The simulated area‐average floe perimeter has a similar magnitude to existing observations in the Arctic and exhibits plausible spatial variability. During the melt season, wave fracture is the dominant FSD process driving changes in floe perimeter per unit sea ice area—the quantity that determines the concentration change due to lateral melt—highlighting the importance of wave‐ice interactions for marginal ice zone thermodynamics. We additionally interpret the results to target spatial scales and processes for which floe size observations can most effectively improve model fidelity.