Assimilation of ice concentration in an ice-ocean model

Ice concentration is a critical parameter of the polar marine environment because of the large effect sea ice has on the surface albedo and heat exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean. Simulations of the energy exchange processes in models would benefit if the ice concentration were represented more accurately. Reanalysis simulations that use historical wind and temperature fields may develop erroneous ice concentration estimates; these can be corrected by using observed ice concentration fields. The ice concentration assimilation presented here is a new method based on nudging the model ice concentration toward the observed concentration in a manner that emphasizes the ice extent and minimizes the effect of observational errors in the interior of the pack. The nudging weight is a nonlinear function of the difference between the model and the observed ice concentration. The simulated ice extent is improved with the assimilation of ice concentration but is not identical to the observed extent. The simulated ice draft is compared to that measured by upward-looking sonars on submarines and moorings. Significant improvements in the ice draft comparisons are obtained with assimilation of ice concentration alone and even more with assimilation of both ice concentration and ice velocity observations.