Articles | Volume 16, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-533-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-533-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
15 Feb 2022
Research article |
| 15 Feb 2022
| 15 Feb 2022
A new state-dependent parameterization for the free drift of sea ice
Charles Brunette
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada
L. Bruno Tremblay
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada
Robert Newton
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA
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Félix St-Denis and L. Bruno Tremblay
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4686, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4686, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for The Cryosphere (TC).
Short summary
Short summary
As the spatial resolution of sea ice models reaches the kilometer scale, it is necessary to ensure that the simulated fracture lines are not resolution-dependent and stem from the physics rather than the numerics. To this end, we implemented an approach such that the ice strength also depends on neighboring points rather than only one in two widely used sea ice models. Through idealised mathematical and numerical experiments, we show that this approach produces resolution-independent fractures.
Florence L. Beaudry and L. Bruno Tremblay
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2911, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2911, 2026
Short summary
Short summary
Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean moves under the action of waves and currents, causing it to deform along narrow lines where the ice opens or piles up. A standard way to evaluate whether models reproduce this behavior relies on how deformation changes with scale. Using synthetic ice fields, we show that this metric responds to how much opening and closing is happening overall, rather than to the organization of the deformation itself, raising caution to its use as a model evaluation tool.
Damien Ringeisen, Bruno Tremblay, Jean-Francois Lemieux, and Martin Losch
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1845, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-1845, 2026
Short summary
Short summary
Sea ice moves and deforms as wind and ocean currents push it around, creating narrow fracture lines on the surface. To accurately reproduce these fracture patterns in computer models used for climate predictions and navigation, we tested a mathematical approach to sea ice dynamics, common in other fields but rare in sea ice modeling, to see if it could better capture these patterns. Our results show this approach could improve fracture representation, though it requires more computing power.
Noémie Planat, Carolina Olivia Dufour, Camille Lique, Jan Klaus Rieck, Claude Talandier, and Louis Bruno Tremblay
Ocean Sci., 22, 653–678, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-22-653-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-22-653-2026, 2026
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We detect and track mesoscale eddies in the Canadian Basin of the Arctic Ocean and describe their spatio-temporal characteristics in a high resolution pan-Arctic model. Results show eddies of typical size 12 km, lasting 10 d and travelling 11 km, with roughly an equal number of cyclones and anticyclones detected. Seasonal, decadal and interannual changes of the number of eddies detected show strong correlations with the ice cover, and with the mean circulation of the basin.
Jean-François Lemieux, Mathieu Plante, Nils Hutter, Damien Ringeisen, Bruno Tremblay, François Roy, and Philippe Blain
The Cryosphere, 19, 5639–5654, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5639-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-5639-2025, 2025
Short summary
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In sea ice models, the flow rule determines how sea ice deforms (opening, closing and shearing) when critical stresses are reached. We implemented in CICE a novel approach to define the flow rule. This is a useful capability as it allows to independently optimize critical stresses and deformations. As opposed to the standard flow rule, the novel approach can lead to a thicker and more active sea ice cover with narrower deformations.
Mathieu Plante, Jean-François Lemieux, L. Bruno Tremblay, Amélie Bouchat, Damien Ringeisen, Philippe Blain, Stephen Howell, Mike Brady, Alexander S. Komarov, Béatrice Duval, Lekima Yakuden, and Frédérique Labelle
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 423–434, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-423-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-423-2025, 2025
Short summary
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Sea ice forms a thin boundary between the ocean and the atmosphere, with complex, crust-like dynamics and ever-changing networks of sea ice leads and ridges. Statistics of these dynamical features are often used to evaluate sea ice models. Here, we present a new pan-Arctic dataset of sea ice deformations derived from satellite imagery, from 1 September 2017 to 31 August 2023. We discuss the dataset coverage and some limitations associated with uncertainties in the computed values.
Antoine Savard and Bruno Tremblay
The Cryosphere, 18, 2017–2034, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2017-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2017-2024, 2024
Short summary
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We include a suitable plastic damage parametrization in the standard viscous–plastic (VP) sea ice model to disentangle its effect from resolved model physics (visco-plastic with and without damage) on its ability to reproduce observed scaling laws of deformation. This study shows that including a damage parametrization in the VP model improves its performance in simulating the statistical behavior of fracture patterns. Therefore, a damage parametrization is a powerful tuning knob.
Mathieu Plante, Jean-François Lemieux, L. Bruno Tremblay, Adrienne Tivy, Joey Angnatok, François Roy, Gregory Smith, Frédéric Dupont, and Adrian K. Turner
The Cryosphere, 18, 1685–1708, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1685-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1685-2024, 2024
Short summary
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We use a sea ice model to reproduce ice growth observations from two buoys deployed on coastal sea ice and analyze the improvements brought by new physics that represent the presence of saline liquid water in the ice interior. We find that the new physics with default parameters degrade the model performance, with overly rapid ice growth and overly early snow flooding on top of the ice. The performance is largely improved by simple modifications to the ice growth and snow-flooding algorithms.
Oreste Marquis, Bruno Tremblay, Jean-François Lemieux, and Mohammed Islam
The Cryosphere, 18, 1013–1032, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1013-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1013-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We developed a standard viscous–plastic sea-ice model based on the numerical framework called smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The model conforms to the theory within an error of 1 % in an idealized ridging experiment, and it is able to simulate stable ice arches. However, the method creates a dispersive plastic wave speed. The framework is efficient to simulate fractures and can take full advantage of parallelization, making it a good candidate to investigate sea-ice material properties.
Mathieu Plante and L. Bruno Tremblay
The Cryosphere, 15, 5623–5638, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5623-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5623-2021, 2021
Short summary
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We propose a generalized form for the damage parameterization such that super-critical stresses can return to the yield with different final sub-critical stress states. In uniaxial compression simulations, the generalization improves the orientation of sea ice fractures and reduces the growth of numerical errors. Shear and convergence deformations however remain predominant along the fractures, contrary to observations, and this calls for modification of the post-fracture viscosity formulation.
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Short summary
Sea ice motion is a versatile parameter for monitoring the Arctic climate system. In this contribution, we use data from drifting buoys, winds, and ice thickness to parameterize the motion of sea ice in a free drift regime – i.e., flowing freely in response to the forcing from the winds and ocean currents. We show that including a dependence on sea ice thickness and taking into account a climatology of the surface ocean circulation significantly improves the accuracy of sea ice motion estimates.
Sea ice motion is a versatile parameter for monitoring the Arctic climate system. In this...
