Sea ice modeling and remote sensing in the Barents and Kara Seas. Part A: Sea ice modelling

This report describes the ice-ocean modeling work carried out in the Arctic Ocean and with focus on the Barents Sea & Kara Sea area during 2005. The main activity has been to set up and run test simulations with the high resolution coupled sea ice – ocean model with about 5 km resolution (the Barents Sea model). The Barents Sea model is nested with the large-scale TOPAZ system covering the whole North Atlantic and Arctic. Like the TOPAZ system, the Barents Sea model is based on the HYCOM ocean model and uses Elastic Visco Plastic (EVP) rheology for the sea ice model. The atmospheric forcing fields are from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
The Barents Sea model have been run for four months in 1979, which was a heavy ice year, and validated with respect to water mass fluxes, temperature and salinity fields and ice edge/ice concentration. An iceberg model have been obtained from Alfred Wegener Institute and will be coupled to the Barents Sea model in 2006. From these components an iceberg drift forecasting model will be implemented and validated. Ice thickness simulations from the North Atlantic model, run for the period 1958 – 2002, have obtained and validated for the Arctic Basin. Ice thickness statistics in selected parts of the Barents Sea have been estimated. The Barents Sea model including the iceberg model will be further tested and validated in 2006. The objective is to establish an operational forecasting system for icebergs, sea ice drift and currents by 2007.