Data from a study of heat conduction into the ice in marine ice shelf melt modelling

Joanthan Wiskandt

This dataset provides time averaged data fields from MITgcm simulations of an idealized Greenlandic fjord including a static parametrized ice shelf.

When simulating melting ice sheets in ocean general circulation models, small scale processes have to be parametrized. The level of accuracy of a parametrization depends on the approximations and assumptions made to develop the paramterizations.

We use different approximations of the heat conduction in the parameterization of the melt rate at the base of the ice shelf to compare the effect of the different approximations on the melt rate and the fjord circulation.

Citation

Joanthan Wiskandt (2024) Data from a study of heat conduction into the ice in marine ice shelf melt modelling. Dataset version 1. Bolin Centre Database. https://doi.org/10.17043/wiskandt-2024-ice-shelf-heat-conduction-1

References

Wiskandt J, Jourdain N. Manuscript submitted to The Cryosphere on July 17th, 2024.

Wiskandt J, Jourdain N (2024) Code for a study of heat conduction into the ice in marine ice shelf melt modelling. Software version 1.0.0. Bolin Centre Code Repository. https://doi.org/10.57669/wiskandt-2024-ice-shelf-heat-conduction-1.0.0

Data description

The dataset consists of output data from MITgcm simulation. Data are provided in a zip file, with one directory called MITgcmTimeAve/ containing 27 netCDF (nc) files accompanied by one comma separated values (csv) file with diagnostic data. Total file size: 1.2 GB (compressed 174 MB).

List of file names

• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW00_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW00_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW00_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW02_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW02_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW02_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW10_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW10_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW10_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW20_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW20_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW20_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW30_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW30_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW30_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW40_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW40_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW40_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW50_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW50_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_AW50_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_nAW10_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_nAW10_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_nAW10_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_nAW20_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_nAW20_IceTemp_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• _2lay_1SLOPE_nAW20_noCo_61_100_TimeAve.nc
• IT_mdata.csv

Data files

The meaning of the parts of the nc file names are as follows:

• 61_100 time averaged fields of model days 61-100 from MITgcm simulations of a two dimensional Greenlandic fjord.
• 2lay two layer stratification.
• 1SLOPE ice base geometry: a single linear slope, i.e. connecting the grounding line and the ice front with a straight line.
• AW00, AW02, AW10, AW20, AW30, AW40, AW50 temperature of the Atlantic Water (AW) in the lower layer, where the digits represent the temperature value in degree Celsius such that 10 refers to 1.0 degrees Celsius.
• nAW10, nAW20 same as above, but n stands for negative temperatures.
• noCo refers to experiments with no heat conduction into the ice in the melt rate parametrization.
• IceTemp refers to a melt dependendent heat conduction into the ice in the melt parametrization.
• in case of neither noCo nor IceTemp a linear temperature gradient is used to calculate heat conduction into the ice.

Diagnostics file

IT_mdata.csv contains integrated diagnostics. The diagnostics are derived from the averaged fields in MITgcmTimeAve/.

The diagnostics are:

1. exp experiment (nomenclature as above).
2. T_AW Atlantic water temperature in degree Celsius.
3. AveMelt averaged melt rate in m/year.

Comments

Jonathan Wiskandt designed and ran the MITgcm Simulations. Python code and MITgcm setup files are provided in the Code for a study of heat conduction into the ice in marine ice shelf melt modelling by Wiskandt & Jourdain (2024).