A numerical investigation on the energetics of a current along an ice-covered continental slope

Leng, Hengling; He, Hailun; Spall, Michael A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-289-2023

Articles | Volume 19, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-289-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-289-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 2

Research article

|

14 Mar 2023

Research article |

| 14 Mar 2023

A numerical investigation on the energetics of a current along an ice-covered continental slope

Hengling Leng, Hailun He, and Michael A. Spall

Data sets

NOAA/NSIDC climate data record of passive microwave sea ice concentration W. N. Meier, F. Fetterer, M. Savoie, S. Mallory, R. Duerr, and J. Stroeve https://doi.org/10.7265/N59P2ZTG

Model code and software

Numerical model setup for studying the energetics of the ocean current under sea ice Hengling Leng https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7317884

Short summary

The Chukchi continental slope is one of the most energetic regions in the western Arctic Ocean as it is populated with strong boundary currents and mesoscale eddies. Using a set of experiments with an idealized primitive equation numerical model, we find that the ice friction can cause the loss of energy of both the Chukchi Slope Current and mesoscale eddies over a vertical scale of 100 m through Ekman pumping. Some scales for measuring the effects of ice friction are also provided.