The NASA Eulerian Snow on Sea Ice Model (NESOSIM) v1.0: initial model development and analysis
<p>The NASA Eulerian Snow On Sea Ice Model (NESOSIM) is a new, open-source snow budget model that is currently configured to produce daily estimates of the depth and density of snow on sea ice across the Arctic Ocean through the accumulation season. NESOSIM has been developed in a three-dim...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2018-11-01
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| Series: | Geoscientific Model Development |
| Online Access: | https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/11/4577/2018/gmd-11-4577-2018.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>The NASA Eulerian Snow On Sea Ice Model (NESOSIM) is a new, open-source snow
budget model that is currently configured to produce daily estimates of the
depth and density of snow on sea ice across the Arctic Ocean through the
accumulation season. NESOSIM has been developed in a three-dimensional
Eulerian framework and includes two (vertical) snow layers and several simple
parameterizations (accumulation, wind packing, advection–divergence, blowing
snow lost to leads) to represent key sources and sinks of snow on sea ice.
The model is forced with daily inputs of snowfall and near-surface winds
(from reanalyses), sea ice concentration (from satellite passive microwave
data) and sea ice drift (from satellite feature tracking) during the
accumulation season (August through April). In this study, we present the
NESOSIM formulation, calibration efforts, sensitivity studies and validation
efforts across an Arctic Ocean domain (100 km horizontal resolution). The
simulated snow depth and density are calibrated with in situ data collected
on drifting ice stations during the 1980s. NESOSIM shows strong agreement
with the in situ seasonal cycles of snow depth and density, and shows good
(moderate) agreement with the regional snow depth (density) distributions.
NESOSIM is run for a contemporary period (2000 to 2015), with the results
showing strong sensitivity to the reanalysis-derived snowfall forcing data,
with the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)
and the Japanese Meteorological Agency 55-year reanalysis (JRA-55) forced snow
depths generally higher than ERA-Interim, and the Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR)
generally lower. We also generate and force NESOSIM with a
consensus <q>median</q> daily snowfall dataset from these reanalyses. The
results are compared against snow depth estimates derived from NASA's
Operation IceBridge (OIB) snow radar data from 2009 to 2015, showing
moderate–strong correlations and root mean squared errors of ∼ 10 cm
depending on the OIB snow depth product analyzed, similar to the comparisons
between OIB snow depths and the commonly used modified Warren snow depth
climatology. Potential improvements to this initial NESOSIM formulation are
discussed in the hopes of improving the accuracy and reliability of these
simulated snow depths and densities.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1991-959X 1991-9603 |