The sea ice component of GC5: coupling SI3 to HadGEM3 using conductive fluxes

Blockley, E., Fielder, E., Ridley, J., Roberts, L., West, A., Copsey, D., Feltham, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2289-014X, Graham, T., Livings, D., Rousset, C., Schroeder, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2351-4306 and Vancoppenolle, M. (2024) The sea ice component of GC5: coupling SI3 to HadGEM3 using conductive fluxes. Geoscientific Model Development, 17 (17). pp. 6799-6817. ISSN 1991-9603 doi: 10.5194/gmd-17-6799-2024

Abstract/Summary

We present an overview of the UK’s Global Sea Ice model configuration version 9 (GSI9), the sea ice component of the latest Met Office Global Coupled model, GC5. The GC5 configuration will, amongst other uses, form the physical basis for the HadGEM3 (Hadley Centre Global Environment Model version 3) climate model and UKESM2 (UK Earth System Model version 2) Earth system model that will provide the Met Office Hadley Centre/UK model contributions to CMIP7 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 7). Although UK ocean model configurations have been developed for many years around the NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) ocean modelling framework, the GSI9 configuration is the first UK sea ice model configuration to use the new native NEMO sea ice model, SI3 (Sea Ice modelling Integrated Initiative). This replaces the CICE (Community Ice CodE) model used in previous configuration versions. In this paper we document the physical and technical options used within the GSI9 sea ice configuration. We provide details of the implementation of SI3 into the Met Office coupled model and the adaptations required to work with our “conductivity coupling” approach and provide a thorough description of the GC5 coupling methodology. A brief evaluation of sea ice simulated by the GC5 model is included, with results compared to observational references and a previous Global Coupled model version (GC3.1) used for CMIP6, to demonstrate the scientific credibility of the results.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/119616
Identification Number/DOI	10.5194/gmd-17-6799-2024
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	European Geosciences Union
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