Melt Pond Scheme Parameter Estimation Using an Adjoint Model

Melt ponds significantly affect Arctic sea ice thermodynamic processes.The melt pond parameterization scheme in the Los Alamos sea ice model(CICE6.0) can predict the volume,area fraction(the ratio between melt pond area to sea ice area in a model grid),and depth of melt ponds.However,this scheme has some uncertain parameters that affect melt pond simulations.These parameters could be determined through a conventional parameter estimation method,which requires a large number of sensitivity simulations.The adjoint model can calculate the parameter sensitivity efficiently.In the present research,an adjoint model was developed for the CESM(Community Earth System Model) melt pond scheme.A melt pond parameter estimation algorithm was then developed based on the CICE6.0 sea ice model,melt pond adjoint model,and L-BFGS(Limited-memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfard-Shanno) minimization algorithm.The parameter estimation algorithm was verified under idealized conditions.By using MODIS(Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer)melt pond fraction observation as a constraint and the developed parameter estimation algorithm,the melt pond aspect ratio parameter in CESM scheme,which is defined as the ratio between pond depth and pond area fraction,was estimated every eight days during summertime for two different regions in the Arctic.One region was covered by multi-year ice(MYI) and the other by first-year ice(FYI).The estimated parameter was then used in simulations and the results show that:(1) the estimated parameter varies over time and is quite different for MYI and FYI;(2) the estimated parameter improved the simulation of the melt pond fraction.