Toppaladoddi, S. orcid.org/0000-0001-8450-2697 and Wells, A.J. (2025) Stochastic model for the turbulent ocean heat flux under Arctic sea ice. Physical Review E: Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, 111 (2). 025101. ISSN 2470-0045
Abstract
The physics of planetary climate features a variety of complex systems that are challenging to model as they feature turbulent flows. A key example is the heat flux from the upper ocean to the underside of sea ice which provides a key contribution to the evolution of the Arctic sea ice cover. Here, we develop a model of the turbulent ice-ocean heat flux using coupled ordinary stochastic differential equations to model fluctuations in the vertical velocity and temperature in the Arctic mixed layer. All the parameters in the model are determined from observational data. A detailed comparison between the model results and measurements made during the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) project reveals that the model is able to capture the probability density functions (PDFs) of velocity, temperature, and heat flux fluctuations. Furthermore, we show that the temperature in the upper layer of the Arctic Ocean can be treated as a passive scalar during the whole year of SHEBA measurements. The stochastic model developed here provides a computationally inexpensive way to compute an observationally consistent PDF of this heat flux and has implications for its parametrization in regional and global climate models.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mathematics (Leeds) > Applied Mathematics (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Jan 2025 15:25 |
Last Modified: | 28 Feb 2025 16:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Physical Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1103/PhysRevE.111.025101 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:221879 |