Snow and ice thicknesses derived from Fast Ice Prediction System Version 2.0 (FIPS V2.0) in Prydz Bay, East Antarctica: comparison with in-situ observations

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, snow and ice thickness products derived from an updated Fast Ice Prediction System Version 2.0 (FIPS V2.0) in Prydz Bay, East Antarctica, are introduced and compared with in-situ observations. FIPS V2.0 is comprised of a newly-developed snowdrift parameterization compared to the original FIPS V1.0. The simulation domain covers the entire fast ice region in Prydz Bay and is configured to 720 grid cells, with a spatial resolution of 0.125°. The ERA-Interim reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) were used as the atmospheric forcing. The in-situ observations were obtained near Zhongshan Station by the wintering team, and the measurement frequency of the snow and ice thicknesses was around one week. Both the FIPS V2.0 products and in-situ observations introduced in this paper cover the time periods from 2012 to 2016. The primary assessments based on the in-situ observations show that FIPS V2.0 has mean biases of 0.01 ± 0.07 m and 0.23 ± 0.09 m for snow and ice thickness simulations, respectively. The results indicate that the updated FIPS V2.0 produces a reasonable snow thickness due to the newly-developed snowdrift parameterization, but it overestimates the ice thickness due to the cold bias in the air temperature forcing. These 2-D snow and ice thickness distributions provide important references for sea ice thermodynamic studies, remote sensing validations, and icebreaker navigation assessments in this region. The dataset is available at http://www.doi.org/10.11922/sciencedb.j00076.00066.