CESM2 Sea Ice thermodynamics sensitivity experiments

We analyze two preindustrial experiments from the Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2) to characterize the impact of sea ice physics on differences in coastal sea ice production around Antarctica and the resulting impact on the ocean and atmosphere. The only difference between the two experiments is the selection of the thermodynamic formulation, by changing the KTHERM namelist parameter. We find substantial differences in the dominant sea ice physical processes, ocean water mass formation, ocean circulation, and coastal atmosphere.