Abstract
AbstractA Fast Ice Prediction System (FIPS) was constructed and is the first regional land-fast sea-ice forecasting system for the Antarctic. FIPS had two components: (1) near-real-time information on the ice-covered area from MODIS and SAR imagery that revealed, tidal cracks, ridged and rafted ice regions; (2) a high-resolution 1-D thermodynamic snow and ice model (HIGHTSI) that was extended to perform a 2-D simulation on snow and ice evolution using atmospheric forcing from ECMWF: either using ERA-Interim reanalysis (in hindcast mode) or HERS operational 10-day predictions (in forecast mode). A hindcast experiment for the 2015 season was in good agreement with field observations, with a mean bias of 0.14 ± 0.07 m and a correlation coefficient of 0.98 for modeled ice thickness. The errors are largely caused by a cold bias in the atmospheric forcing. The thick snow cover during the 2015 season led to modeled formation of extensive snow ice and superimposed ice. The first FIPS operational service was performed during the 2017/18 season. The system predicted a realistic ice thickness and onset of snow surface melt as well as the area of internal ice melt. The model results on the snow and ice properties were considered by the captain of R/VXuelongwhen optimizing a low-risk route for on-ice transportation through fast ice to the coastal Zhongshan Station.
Highlights
Land-fast sea ice, or fast ice, is often attached to the coastline or ice shelves, and provides a stable buffer zone from the mobile pack ice drifting offshore (Hoppmann and others, 2015)
The annual meteorological parameters measured at the Zhongshan Weather Station (ZS) and those measured by an automatic weather station (AWS) deployed on fast ice for the period 15 May to 7 December 2015 close to sea-ice observation point (SIP) were compared to the results from the nearest European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) ERA Interim gridcell
For the last three decades, logistic supplies have been delivered to Zhongshan Station across the fast ice every year during early austral summer by the icebreaker R/V Xuelong
Summary
Land-fast sea ice, or fast ice, is often attached to the coastline or ice shelves, and provides a stable buffer zone from the mobile pack ice drifting offshore (Hoppmann and others, 2015). The physical factors affecting the annual cycle of fast ice thickness in Prydz Bay include the incoming and outgoing solar shortwave and thermal longwave radiative fluxes; turbulent surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat; density, thermal conductivity and depth of snow; as well as oceanic heat flux at the ice base (Heil and others, 1996; Lei and others, 2010; Yang and others, 2015; Zhao and others, 2019a). Among those factors, the atmospheric forcing plays a dominant role in land-ice mass balance (Heil, 2006).
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