An Nguyen (University of Texas - The Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences)
Fri, March 30, 2018, 10:30am - 11:30am

Video Broadcast

Host: Ginny Catania

Abstract:
The Arctic region has experienced increase in air temperature at approximately twice the global rate and rapid decline in sea ice cover, with large consequence for its physical state and ecosystem. This makes the ability to understand and model the Arctic ocean-sea ice system mean state and changes an urgent task. Since the turn of the century, availability of satellite and in situ observations of basin-scale sea ice thickness, sub-surface ocean hydrography, and ocean integrated mass has facilitated data-model synthesis. In this talk, I will discuss the progress of the Arctic Subpolar gyre state Estimate (ASTE), a medium-resolution regional ocean-sea ice synthesis obtained using the non-linear inversion tools developed within the ECCO consortium. Individual and collective contributions of data sets, including GRACE and Ice Tethered Profilers, to the improvement of the state estimate hydrography and internal mixing will be discussed. In addition, adjoint sensitivity will be used to illustrate the dependence of important model parameters on the locations of existing and potentially new observations in the Arctic. Lastly, building on ASTE, preliminary results from a forward high resolution regional Arctic run will be used to investigate recent changes in the Arctic ocean including enhanced Arctic "Atlantification" and enhanced energy input from surface winds.