Parameterizing the fresh-water flux from land ice to ocean with interactive icebergs in a coupled climate model

Icebergs are an important part of the fresh-water cycle and, until now, have not been explicitly represented in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) class coupled global circulation models (CGCMs) of the climate system. In this study we examine the impact of introducing interactive icebergs in a next-generation CGCM designed for 21st Century climate predictions. The frozen fresh-water discharge from land is used as calving to create icebergs in the coupled system which are then free to evolve and interact with the sea-ice and ocean components. Icebergs are fully prognostic, represented as point particles and evolve according to momentum and mass balance equations. About 100,000 individual particles are present at any time in the simulations but represent many more icebergs through a clustering approach. The various finite sizes of icebergs, which are prescribed by a statistical distribution at the calving points, lead to a finite life-time of icebergs ranging from weeks, for the smallest icebergs (60 m length), up to years for the largest (2.2 km length). The resulting melt water distribution seen by the ocean enhances deep-water formation, in particular on the continental shelves, relative to the model without icebergs. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.