Sensitivity of Arctic surface boundary layer process to sea ice concentrations: WRF atmospheric modeling study

Motivation and Goal: Sea ice concentration (SIC) is one of the most important factors influencing energy budget of the coupled boundary layer process in the Arctic. Currently, there are a number of satellite-based SIC datasets employing different retrieval algorithms, resulting in at times large regional discrepancy in SIC estimate. Goal of this study is to quantify the extent to which the Arctic atmosphere is sensitive to SIC estimates based on the Weather Forecast and Research (WRF) regional atmospheric model. Method: We have carried out a series of one-month-long WRF integrations forced with four commonly used satellite-based SIC datasets, 1) NASA Team (NT), 2) Bootstrap (BT), 3) EUMETSAT Reprocessed sea ice (EUMET), and 4) Sea ice from NOAAOI SST (NOAA). The results are first verified against the in situ meteorological measurements at the Ice Station SHEBA (SHEBA) in winter (January) and summer (August) in 1998, and then at the Barrow Observatory (BRW). Sea Ice Concentration (SIC): In winter, all four sea ice datasets agree well at the SHEBA site with ~1 SIC, while in summer, BT has consistently higher sea ice (0.95