Southern Ocean polynyas and dense water formation in a high-resolution, coupled Earth System Model

Abstract. Antarctic Bottom Water is an important component of Earth's climate system. Its formation occurs through ocean-atmosphere-sea ice flux interactions in coastal and open ocean polynyas around Antarctica. In this paper, we investigate Antarctic dense water formation in the high-resolution version of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM-HR). The model is able to reproduce the major Antarctic coastal polynyas, though they are smaller in area compared to observations. E3SM-HR also simulates several occurrences of open-ocean polynyas (OOPs) in the Weddell Sea, at a higher rate than what the last 50 years of satellite sea ice observational record suggests, but similarly to other high-resolution Earth System Model simulations. Furthermore, the densest water masses in the model are formed within the OOPs, rather than on the continental shelf, as is typically observed. Biases related to the lack of dense water formation on the continental shelf are associated with overly strong atmospheric polar easterlies, which lead to a strong Antarctic Slope Front and hence too little communication between on and off continental shelf water masses. Strong polar easterlies also produce excessive southward Ekman transport, causing a build-up of sea ice over the continental shelf and enhanced ice melting in the summer season. This in turn produces water masses on the continental shelf that are overly fresh and less dense relative to observations. Our results indicate that the large-scale polar atmospheric circulation around Antarctica must be accurately simulated in models to properly reproduce Antarctic dense water formation.