The IARC Coupled Ice-Ocean Model (CIOM, Wang et al. 2002) is configured for the pan-Arctic and northern North Atlantic Ocean with a 27.5 km resolution (Fig. 1). The model is driven by the daily atmospheric climatology averaged from the 40-year NCEP reanalysis (1958-1997). The ocean model is the Princeton Ocean Model (POM), while the sea ice model is based on a full thermodynamical and dynamical model with plastic-viscous rheology. A sea ice model with multiple categories of thickness is utilized. A systematic model-data comparison was conducted. This model reasonably reproduces seasonal cycles of both the sea ice and the ocean. Climatological sea ice areas derived from historical data are used to validate the ice model performance. The simulated sea ice cover reaches a maximum of 14 x10 km in winter and a minimum of 6.7 x10 km in summer. This is close to the 95-year climatology with a maximum of 13.3 x10 km in winter and a minimum of 7 x10 km in summer. The simulated general circulation in the Arctic Ocean, the GIN (Greenland, Iceland, and Norwegian) seas, and northern North Atlantic Ocean are qualitatively consistent with historical mapping. It is found that the low winter salinity or freshwater in the Canada Basin tends to converge due to the strong anticyclonic atmospheric circulation that drives the anticyclonic ocean surface current, while low summer salinity or freshwater tends to spread inside the Arctic and exports out of the Arctic due to the relaxing wind field. It is also found that the warm, saline Atlantic Water has little seasonal variation, based on both simulation and observations. Seasonal cycles of temperature and salinity at several representative locations reveals regional features that characterize different water mass properties (see figures).

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References:

Wang, J., Q. Liu and M. Jin, 2002. A User’s Guide for a Coupled Ice-Ocean Model (CIOM) in the Pan-Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans. International Arctic Research Center- Frontier Research System for Global Change, Tech. Rep. 02-01, 65 pp.

Wang, J., B. Wu, C. Tang, J.E. Walsh and M. Ikeda, 2004. Seesaw structure of subsurface temperature anomalies between the Barents Sea and the Labrador Sea. Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L19301, doi: 10.1029/2004GL019981.

Wang, J., Q. Liu, M. Jin, M. Ikeda and F.J. Saucier, 2005. A coupled ice-ocean model in the pan-Arctic and the northern North Atlantic Ocean: Simulation of seasonal cycles.
J. Oceanogr., 61, 213-233.

Wu, B. J. Wang and R. Zhang, 2004. Effects of intraseasonal variations of the Arctic
Oscillation on the Barents Sea. Polar Meteorolo. Glaciol., 18, 82-95.