New sea ice albedo schemes to be included in future Met Office climate models and their effect on the climate.

The Met Office GC5 climate model has a simple sea ice albedo. To improve this, new albedo schemes have been implemented for bare sea ice, snow on sea ice and melt ponds. These improved albedo schemes include a solar zenith angle dependence, a snow grain size dependence (for snow on sea ice) and a more scientifically accurate representation of absorption of sunlight within melt ponds.

Climate simulations of GC5 for present day and 2xCO₂ have been performed with (and without) the improved sea ice albedo schemes. We will present the effect of improved sea ice albedos on the present climate and the effect when a doubling of CO₂ has been imposed.