Abstract
Abstract. A high-resolution coupled ocean–sea ice model is set up within the Labrador Sea. With a horizontal resolution of 1∕60∘, this simulation is capable of resolving the multitude of eddies that transport heat and freshwater into the interior of the Labrador Sea. These fluxes strongly govern the overall stratification, deep convection, restratification, and production of Labrador Sea Water. Our regional configuration spans the full North Atlantic and Arctic; however, high resolution is only applied in smaller nested domains within the North Atlantic and Labrador Sea. Using nesting reduces computational costs and allows for a long simulation from 2002 to the near present. Three passive tracers are also included: Greenland runoff, Labrador Sea Water produced during convection, and Irminger Water that enters the Labrador Sea along Greenland. We describe the configuration setup and compare it against similarly forced lower-resolution simulations to better describe how horizontal resolution impacts the representation of the Labrador Sea in the model.
Highlights
The Labrador Sea, between Canada and Greenland, plays a crucial role in the climate system
The numerical model used for our high-resolution simulation is the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO; Madec, 2008), version 3.6, which is coupled to a sea ice model, LIM2 (Fichefet and Maqueda, 1997)
We describe a more than 10-year-long, high-resolution simulation that achieves a 1/60◦ horizontal resolution in the Labrador Sea via two nests inside a regional configuration, resolving mesoscale and sub-mesoscale processes that strongly impact the deep convection which occurs here
Summary
The Labrador Sea, between Canada and Greenland, plays a crucial role in the climate system. The boundary currents continuously shed eddies with relatively buoyant water towards the interior Labrador Sea (Straneo, 2006), increasing stratification This occurs along the west Greenland and Labrador coasts, research suggests that the former supplies more freshwater (Myers, 2005; Schmidt and Send, 2007; McGeehan and Maslowski, 2011; Pennelly et al, 2019). Coarseresolution simulations suffer even further, often overproducing the spatial area of deep convection (Courtois et al, 2017), primarily as a result of not resolving important small-scale features including eddies These eddies supply the Labrador Sea with significant heat (Gelderloos et al, 2011) and freshwater fluxes (Hátún et al, 2007), which both strongly impact the stratification, convection, and production of deep water.
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