This award supports the development of a new shortwave radiation parameterization for the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) sea ice component. The parameterization will be designed to increase the accuracy, consistency, and generality of the treatment of shortwave radiation and its interactions with snow and sea ice. The new parameterization will use a two-stream radiative transfer model that explicitly accounts for multiple scattering and employs physically realistic inherent optical properties for snow and sea ice. This approach is simple, efficient, and consistent with the treatment of shortwave radiation in the atmospheric component of CCSM.
Broader Impacts: It is anticipated that this parameterization will result in improvements in CCSM sea ice model simulations and will increase climate scientists' ability to quantitatively assess the ice-albedo feedback mechanism in climate. Such improvements have the potential to substantially enhance the applicability of the CCSM model and the science related to climate and climate change. This research also has the potential to produce improved scientific information relevant to better-informed environmental policy decisions related to climate change.
