Tracer measurements in growing sea ice support convective gravity drainage parameterizations

Thomas, M., Vancoppenolle, M., France, J.l., Sturges, W. T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9044-7169, Bakker, D. C. E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9234-5337, Kaiser, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1553-4043 and Glasow, R. von (2020) Tracer measurements in growing sea ice support convective gravity drainage parameterizations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125 (2). ISSN 2169-9275

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Abstract

Gravity drainage is the dominant process redistributing solutes in growing sea ice. Modeling gravity drainage is therefore necessary to predict physical and biogeochemical variables in sea ice. We evaluate seven gravity drainage parameterizations, spanning the range of approaches in the literature, using tracer measurements in a sea ice growth experiment. Artificial sea ice is grown to around 17 cm thickness in a new experimental facility, the Roland von Glasow air‐sea‐ice chamber. We use NaCl (present in the water initially) and rhodamine (injected into the water after 10 cm of sea ice growth) as independent tracers of brine dynamics. We measure vertical profiles of bulk salinity in situ, as well as bulk salinity and rhodamine in discrete samples taken at the end of the experiment. Convective parameterizations that diagnose gravity drainage using Rayleigh numbers outperform a simpler convective parameterization and diffusive parameterizations when compared to observations. This study is the first to numerically model solutes decoupled from salinity using convective gravity drainage parameterizations. Our results show that (1) convective, Rayleigh number‐based parameterizations are our most accurate and precise tool for predicting sea ice bulk salinity; and (2) these parameterizations can be generalized to brine dynamics parameterizations, and hence can predict the dynamics of any solute in growing sea ice

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: convection,gravity drainage,laboratory,modeling,sea ice,geophysics,forestry,oceanography,aquatic science,ecology,water science and technology,soil science,geochemistry and petrology,earth-surface processes,atmospheric science,earth and planetary sciences (miscellaneous),space and planetary science,palaeontology ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1900/1908
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 18 Mar 2020 06:57
Last Modified: 13 Jul 2023 11:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/73990
DOI: 10.1029/2019JC015791

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