Toward Construction of an Efficient, Lead-Resolving PIPS Model

Our long-term goals are to develop and implement lead-based sea ice rheologies in a high-resolution anisotropic sea ice model that is able to efficiently simulate and predict the initialization and propagation of oriented leads and ridges of sea ice. Our particular interest is to provide such a lead-resolving sea ice model for the Navy’s Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS) for high-resolution, large-scale sea ice forecasting. We are also interested in using the model to understand the dynamic and thermodynamic sea ice processes that trigger leads and ridges to form and propagate in time and space in relation to atmospheric and oceanic forcing. In addition, we wish to use the model to study the airsea exchange through leads in relation to their geometry and thickness.