Arctic sea ice concentration and thickness data assimilation in the FIO-ESM climate forecast system

To improve the Arctic sea ice forecast skill of the First Institute of Oceanography-Earth System Model (FIO-ESM) climate forecast system, satellite-derived sea ice concentration and sea ice thickness from the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) are assimilated into this system, using the method of localized error subspace transform ensemble Kalman filter (LESTKF). Five-year (2014–2018) Arctic sea ice assimilation experiments and a 2-month near-real-time forecast in August 2018 were conducted to study the roles of ice data assimilation. Assimilation experiment results show that ice concentration assimilation can help to get better modeled ice concentration and ice extent. All the biases of ice concentration, ice cover, ice volume, and ice thickness can be reduced dramatically through ice concentration and thickness assimilation. The near-real-time forecast results indicate that ice data assimilation can improve the forecast skill significantly in the FIO-ESM climate forecast system. The forecasted Arctic integrated ice edge error is reduced by around 1/3 by sea ice data assimilation. Compared with the six near-real-time Arctic sea ice forecast results from the subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) Prediction Project, FIO-ESM climate forecast system with LESTKF ice data assimilation has relatively high Arctic sea ice forecast skill in 2018 summer sea ice forecast. Since sea ice thickness in the PIOMAS is updated in time, it is a good choice for data assimilation to improve sea ice prediction skills in the near-realtime Arctic sea ice seasonal prediction.