The simulation of sea ice in CMIP5 models shows a large spread between models, making projections of the timing of a summer ice free Arctic highly uncertain. In order to improve sea ice simulations in climate models, the sea ice modeling community would benefit from a dedicated workshop to come together and discuss ways forward, to learn from CMIP5, and to plan for CMIP6.
Year 1: Workshop in year 1 to bring together the sea ice modeling community (developers and model users, with a focus on sea ice modeling in climate models) to discuss model development needs, coordinate model analysis of the source of model biases in CMIP5 models, determine pressing observational need, and compile a list of sea ice variables to be saved for CMIP6.
Large-Scale Sea Ice Simulations Workshop
September 26th, University of Reading, UK
Read Workshop Report
Year 2: Joint workshop with other ongoing sea ice modeling activities (e.g., SIPN) to bring together sea ice observers and modelers to develop a concrete list of observational data that would be most useful for the evaluation and improvement of sea ice simulations by climate models.
Year 2-3: Coordination (through email list and website, as well as meetings of opportunity) of CMIP5 sea ice bias analysis and writing of community paper, as well as regular exchange of new results on sea ice model developments and new observational data products
The CliC sea ice and climate modeling forum has the goal to improve the development and performance of sea ice models by addressing the following priorities:
To join our group and the mailing list, please send an email to with the subject line Sea Ice Modeling Forum List and include following information:
To share information with the list send an email to seaicemodeling at climate-cryosphere.org