NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Simulating Snow Over Sea Ice In Climate ModelsWe have evaluated two methods of simulating the seasonal cycle of snow over sea ice in and around the Arctic: The NCAR global climate model CCM3, with its standard snow hydrology, and the snow pack model SNTHERM, forced with hourly atmospheric output from CCM3. A new dataset providing dates for the onset of snow melt over Arctic sea ice provides a means for assessing basin-wide how well the models simulate melt onset, but contains no information on how long it then takes for all the snow to melt. Use of data from the SHEBA site provides very detailed information on the behavior of the snow before and during the melt season, but only for a very limited area. Russian drift data provide climatological data on the seasonal cycle of snow water equivalent and snow density, over multi-year sea ice in the central Arctic basin. These datasets are used to compare the two modeling methods, and to see if use of the more physically-realistic SNTHERM provides any significant improvements. Conclusions obtained so far include: 1. Both CCM3 and CCM3/SNTHERM do a good job overall of matching the onset of snow melt dataset; although CCM3/SNTHERM consistently trends to underestimate the date and CCM3 to overestimate it. 2. SHEBA and ice drift data for the Arctic show that CCM3/ SNTHERM does a better job than CCM3 at simulating the total melt period. 3. Ice drift snow density and accumulation data suggest that while providing superior results, CCM3/SNTHERM may still suffer from overly vigorous melting. 4. Both the large-scale atmospheric forcing and snow pack physical processes are important in proper simulation of the snow seasonal cycle. Ongoing work includes further diagnosis of CCM3/SNTHERM, use of more observational datasets, especially from marginal seas in the pan-Arctic, and full coupling of SNTHERM into CCM3 (work to date has all been off-line simulations).
Document ID
20030054458
Acquisition Source
Marshall Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Arnold, James E.
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Marshall, Susan
(Rocky Mountain Coll. Billings, MT, United States)
Oglesby, Robert J.
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Drobot, Sheldon
(Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
Anderson, Mark
(Nebraska Univ. Lincoln, NE, United States)
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2002
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Meeting Information
Meeting: AGU Fall Meeting
Location: San Francisco
Country: United States
Start Date: December 5, 2002
End Date: December 11, 2002
Sponsors: American Geophysical Union
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available