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Sensitivity of the Arctic sea ice concentration forecasts to different atmospheric forcing: a case study

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Abstract

A regional Arctic configuration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model (MITgcm) is used as the coupled ice-ocean model for forecasting sea ice conditions in the Arctic Ocean at the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center of China (NMEFC), and the numerical weather prediction from the National Center for Environmental Prediction Global Forecast System (NCEP GFS) is used as the atmospheric forcing. To improve the sea ice forecasting, a recently developed Polar Weather Research and Forecasting model (Polar WRF) model prediction is also tested as the atmospheric forcing. Their forecasting performances are evaluated with two different satellite-derived sea ice concentration products as initializations: (1) the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) and (2) the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E). Three synoptic cases, which represent the typical atmospheric circulations over the Arctic Ocean in summer 2010, are selected to carry out the Arctic sea ice numerical forecasting experiments. The evaluations suggest that the forecasts of sea ice concentrations using the Polar WRF atmospheric forcing show some improvements as compared with that of the NCEP GFS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physical Oceanography Laboratory, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Qinghua Yang

  2. Polar Environmental Research and Forecasting Division, National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center, Beijing, 100081, China

    Qinghua Yang, Cuijuan Sui, Jianyong Xing, Ming Li, Chunhua Li, Jiechen Zhao & Lin Zhang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Jiping Liu

  4. Key Laboratory for Polar Science of State Oceanic Administration, Polar Research Institute of China, Shanghai, 200136, China

    Zhanhai Zhang

Authors
  1. Qinghua Yang
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  2. Jiping Liu
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  3. Zhanhai Zhang
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  4. Cuijuan Sui
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  5. Jianyong Xing
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  6. Ming Li
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  7. Chunhua Li
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  8. Jiechen Zhao
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  9. Lin Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qinghua Yang.

Additional information

Foundation item: The Ocean Public Welfare Project of China under contract No. 201205007; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41176169, 41376005, 41376188 and 41106165.

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Yang, Q., Liu, J., Zhang, Z. et al. Sensitivity of the Arctic sea ice concentration forecasts to different atmospheric forcing: a case study. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 33, 15–23 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-014-0566-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-014-0566-7

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