From Air to Ice to Ocean: Quantifying the Role of Wind Forcing in Sea Ice and Upper Ocean Kinematics

Sea ice modulates atmosphere-to-ocean energy and momentum transfer at high latitudes. As sea ice continues to decline rapidly, accurately predicting its dynamics becomes increasingly important for improving representations of ocean currents in climate models. Previous work by our group demonstrates that remote sensing observations of sea ice rotation can be leveraged to infer upper ocean eddy vorticity and its spectral characteristics. However, this relationship weakens under strong winds. In this talk, we examine the influence of surface roughness on the rotational motion of ice floes by introducing variability in the parameterization of the drag coefficient within SubZero, a discrete element sea ice model. The dynamics are investigated using two different idealized ocean models and simulated considering non-uniform wind conditions. Our findings reveal new insights into how wind–ice interactions evolve across conditions, helping to pinpoint the wind regimes and floe size scales at which the connection between sea ice kinematics and upper ocean eddy vorticity breaks down.