Development and application of NMEFC Arctic Ice-Ocean Prediction System (ArcIOPS) of CHINA

NMEFC provides sea ice services for the CHINARE since 2010, the products in the early stage (before 2017) include satellite-retrieved and numerical forecasts of sea ice concentration. Based on MITgcm and ensemble Kalman Filter data assimilation scheme,  the Arctic Ice-Ocean Prediction System (ArcIOPS v1.0), was established in 2017. ArcIOPS v1.0 assimilates available satellite-retrieved sea ice concentration and thickness data. Sea ice thickness forecasting products from ArcIOPS v1.0 are provided to the CHINARE8, and are believed to have played an important role in the successful passage of R/V XUELONG through the Central Arctic for the first time during the summer of 2017. In 2019, ArcIOPS v1.0 was upgraded to the latest version (ArcIOPS v1.1), which assimilates satellite-retrieved sea ice concentration, sea ice thickness, as well as sea surface temperature (SST) data in ice free areas. Comparison between outputs of the latest version of ArcIOPS and that of its previous version shows that the latest version has a substantial improvement on sea ice concentration forecasts. In the future, with more and more kinds of observations to be assimilated, the high-resolution version of ArcIOPS will be put into operational running and benefit Chinese scientific and commercial activities in the Arctic Ocean.