Assessment of the Finite VolumE Sea Ice Ocean Model (FESOM2.0), with respect to Partial bottom cells, embedded sea ice and vertical mixing library CVMix

Abstract

<p>In this study we will present the second part of the assessment and evaluation of the unstructured-mesh Finite-volumE Sea ice-Ocean Model version 2.0 (FESOM2.0). It focuses on the performance of partial cells, embedded sea ice and on the effect of mixing parameterisations available through the CVMix package.</p><p>It is shown that partial cells and embedded sea ice lead to significant improvements in the representation of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current as well as the circulation of the Arctic Ocean. In addition to the already existing Pacanowski and Phillander (fesom_PP) and K-profile (fesom_KPP) parameterisations for vertical mixing in FESOM2.0, we document the impact of several mixing parameterisations from the Community Vertical Mixing (CVMix) project library. Among them are the CVMix versions of Pacanowski and Phillander (cvmix_PP) and K-profile (cvmix_KPP) parameterisations, the tidal mixing parameterisation (cvmix_TIDAL), a vertical mixing parameterisation based on turbulent kinetic energy (cvmix_TKE) as well as a combination of cvmix_TKE and the recent scheme for the computation of the Internal Wave Dissipation, Energy and Mixing (IDEMIX). Further, we show the benefit from using a parameterisation of southern hemisphere sea ice melt season mixing in the surface layer (MOMIX) for reducing Southern Ocean hydrographic biases in FESOM2.0.</p>