Sea surface salinity, velocity at 30 m depth and sea ice simulated with AWI-CM3

Based on a simulation with a high resolution version of the AWI-CM3 climate model ,the visualization shows the sea surface salinity (color), the velocity at 30 m depth (shading) as well as the sea ice concentration (color and opacity) and the sea ice thickness (height shading) for the period 2004-2011.
Precipitation, evaporation, river runoff, ice melt, upwelling, mixing and other phenomena can change the salinity. Ocean currents transport water with different physical properties, i.e. different temperatures and salinities, to other regions. Focusing on the salinity at the sea surface, this visualization shows the complex oceanic current patterns over the course of eight years.
Since the velocity at a depth of 30 m was used for the visualization instead of at the surface, the oceanic current patterns shown are much less influenced by fast-moving weather patterns and are therefore less noisy.
At the same time, however, the salinity at the sea surface is also shown by color mapping, so that the effects of weather phenomena such as strong storms can still be observed. The sea ice in the Arctic and around the Antarctic has a pronounced annual cycle. Cracks can be observed particularly during the melting periods.
The simulation was carried out for the period 1900 - 2014 using the Alfred Wegener Institute AWI-CM-3 climate model (awi-cm3-documentation.readthe...) with historical CMIP6 forcing. The resolution of the ocean model component (FESOM2) is 2-4 km in high latitudes and in shelf areas and varies between 2-7 km in regions with active eddies and in regions with strong ocean currents. The resolution of the atmospheric component (OpenIFS) is 16 km.
The simulation was carried out at the DKRZ. The visualization software used was ParaView.
Simulation: Dmitry Sein, AWI (www.awi.de/)
Visualization: Michayel Böttinger, DKRZ (www.dkrz.de)