Including Sea Ice and Ocean Models in the Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS)

The next operational version of the NOAA’s Global Ensemble Forecasting System (GEFS) will include sea ice and ocean predictions. The model is based on NOAA’s fully-coupled Earth system modeling framework, the Unified Forecast System (UFS), which couples multiple models/components for an accurate representation and predictions of the earth system for days to seasons. The sea ice model is version 6 of the Community ICE Model (CICE) sea ice model and the ocean model is Modular Ocean Model version 6 (MOM6). This presentation will describe the coupling between the atmosphere model, CICE6 , and MOM6; the initialization of CICE6 and MOM6; and present preliminary results. After the current results are examined, future steps and challenges associated with CICE and MOM6 will be explored.