The seasonal cycle of sea ice, especially the ice margin location in the East Greenland region, is significantly affected by ocean circulation. The ocean circulation in turn can be altered by ice dynamics which cause large amounts of ice to be transported to the ice margin to be melted, thus stratifying the ocean there. By responding to wind changes, the ice dynamics can also create rapid melting or freezing events which can destabilize the ocean.

In an earlier study, Hibler and Bryan (1987) carried out a diagnostic simulation of the Arctic ice-ocean system in which a coupled ice-ocean circulation model was integrated for about five years beginning with mean annual estimates by Levitus (1982) of the observed temperature and salinity fields. As a consequence of this short integration, the mean baroclinic circulation of the ocean deviated little from the initial fields, although seasonal and local effects due to the interactive models were simulated. One particularly interesting result of this study was the presence of fluctuations of oceanic heat flux at the ice margin, which appeared to coincide with strong wind events occurring over a few days which induced periods of freezing.

With this diagnostic model, good results for the location of the ice margin were obtained. However, a global budget analysis indicated that the net northward heat transport through the Faero–Shetland passage was not adequate to balance the heat loss to the atmosphere sustained by the ocean in the fifth year. Moreover, a 20-year simulation without diagnostic terms showed a degraduation of the baroclinic fields in the Arctic Basin possibly due to the very weak wind stress used for this particular years's wind forcing, or perhaps due to excessive damping in the ocean due to computational requirements imposed by the coarse grid.

As a first step in the development of a higher-resolution fully interactive prognostic model, we have modified this model and carried out two prognostic simulations of the Arctic ice ocean system by employing 50-year integrations. The ocean model used for this study is essentially that of Hibler and Bryan (1987). However, the boundary conditions, atmospheric forcing, and ice model have been changed. In particular, a much more robust wind forcing was obtained by replacing the monthly mean wind fields with a 30-year means in order to obtain a seasonal forcing closer to climatology. With regard to the ice rheology, a cavitating fluid model in spherical coordinates which fully conserves ice mass and air sea heat exchanges was employed. The idea here is to attenuate less of the stress into the ocean so that even though the circulation is somewhat sluggish due to large viscous damping, a reasonable current field for the Arctic Basin might be obtained.

Two types of prognostic circulation experiments were carried out with this model using different southern boundary conditions. In one case, a diagnostic relaxation near the boundary as used by Hibler and Bryan (1987) was employed. In this case, heat mass and salt transports through the southern boundary are essentially simulated. In the second case, the net burotropic flow through the Faero-Shetland passage and Denmark Strait were specified with the baroclinic transports partially specified by diagnostic relaxation terms. The results from both these models are analyzed with special attention to the ice edge location and the character of the baroclinic fields in the Arctic Basin.