A NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF THE SEA-ICE COVER IN THE NORTHERN GREENLAND SEA

A numerical simulation of the sea ice cover in the northern Greenland Sea (NGS) is presented. The simulation is carried out using the coupled sea ice ocean general circulation model of Oberhuber (1993). The coupled model is forced using monthly climatological atmospheric forcing. The model domain includes both the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic. The large-scale characteristics of the observed sea ice cover in the NGS are reasonably well reproduced when compared with the limited observations available. Two notable aspects of the simulation are (1) a trough in the ice compactness across Fram Strait and (2) a polynya along the northeast coast of Greenland. Both of these features are evident in the observations during the spring-summer period. A sensitivity experiment in which the ice internal stress term is removed from the ice model demonstrates that the inclusion of a realistic sea ice theology is a key factor in simulating the detailed features noted above for the NGS.