HR: 1340h
AN: C33B-1133    [Abstracts]
TI: Evaluating Sub-grid-scale Variability in Gridded Sea-ice Thickness Observations
AU: * Lemcke, M D
EM: bigmar@udel.edu
AF: Department of Geography, University of Delaware, 216 Pearson Hall, Newark, DE 19711 United States
AB: Spatial resolution errors are a commonly overlooked source of inaccuracies in climate data and model evaluation studies. Important sub-grid-scale variability may not be detected at relatively coarse general circulation model (GCM) resolutions. Flaws in GCM output reported in model evaluation studies may reflect biases in both model physics and those resulting from grid cell size. In this study, the effect of spatial resolution error on gridded sea-ice thickness observations for the Southern Ocean is evaluated for frequently used ice and ocean model resolutions. Sea-ice thickness data are derived from weekly operational sea-ice charts produced by the National Ice Center (NIC) for January through October of 1997. Weekly sea ice thickness distributions are converted to a high-resolution (one degree by one degree) grid then aggregated to progressively larger spatial resolutions. The total error associated with the weekly Antarctic sea-ice thickness estimates derived from the NIC sea-ice charts are evaluated in terms of both the average bias error within the data and the resolution error associated with grid-cell size. Future work will include using the NIC ice thickness observations to evaluate the Antarctic sea-ice thickness distribution produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate System Model, version three (CCSM3).
DE: 0750 Sea ice (4540)
DE: 0794 Instruments and techniques
DE: 0798 Modeling
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005