Sea Ice Modelling and Forecasting

Sea ice is a fascinating media, of which modelling is in its infancy compared to the ocean and atmosphere. This chapter focuses on the new frontiers in sea ice modelling and forecasting, with particular attention on sea ice dynamics. It is divided in two sections: 1) New frontiers in sea ice modelling and 2) New frontiers in sea ice forecasting. In the first section, we describe ice pack dynamics and then concentrate on the representation of sea ice dynamics in continuous models. A sub-section discusses the potential impacts on the ocean and atmosphere of explicitly resolving some features related to sea ice dynamics, in particular the opening and closing of leads, in coupled modelling systems. In the second section, we point out three important constraints on sea ice forecasting related to 1) potentially large biases in the near real-time data, 2) time-varying biases in the external forcing, and 3) far-from-equilibrium dynamical state. These points are explored by addressing the two following questions: “How can we beat ice charts persistency?” and “Can we predict sea ice fracturing and deformation days in advance?”