The influence of the initial temperature field on sea ice simulations in the Bohai Sea in winter of 2015/2016

To assess the influence of the initial temperature field on ocean temperature and sea ice simulations,a climatological dataset(WOA18),a real-time varying dataset(SODA),and an analysis field obtained after applying the“vertical projection”assimilation scheme were selected to obtain the initial temperature field(the initial moment was December 1,2015)for use in the sea ice simulation of the HAMSOM ice-ocean coupled model,considering the Bohai Sea in the 2015/2016 winter.In this study,after using this assimilation scheme,the analysis initial temperature field showed significant improvement.The simulated SST results showed that the initial temperature field had a considerable effect on the SST results in the first 45 days of the model run;after this period,the effect became negligible and the model internal dynamics and atmospheric forcing became dominant.The simulated sea ice results showed that the ice area and ice edge distance(i.e.,the distance between the intersection of the central axis and the ice edge line and axis apex)results obtained in experiment E3 which used the analysis initial temperature field were improved by~14%and~35%,respectively,and those obtained in experiment E2 which used the real-time varying initial temperature field were improved by~10%and~22%,respectively,compared to the results of experiment E1 which used the climatological initial temperature field.