9423506 This project is an enhancement to the treatment of sea ice in a comprehensive numerical environmental model -- the Global Environmental and Ecological Simulation of Interactive Systems (GENESIS) model -- being developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The enhancements will include a more physically representative surface albedo, turbulent fluxes of heat from leads and other openings in the ice, and the shear strength of the sea ice cover. An additional goal of the project is to investigate the effects of some approximations used in the GENESIS model that have not been adequately studied, and which may be the source of seasonally anomalous distributions of ice. These include the treatment of ice deformation as a cavitating fluid and the assumption of a linear thickness distribution. The output of the enhanced GENESIS model will be tested and validated with a stand- alone sea ice model and with existing arctic surface data. ***
