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Wave-Sea Ice Coupling#7958

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erinethomas wants to merge 25 commits intoE3SM-Project:masterfrom
erinethomas:seaice/wave_ice_coupling
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Wave-Sea Ice Coupling#7958
erinethomas wants to merge 25 commits intoE3SM-Project:masterfrom
erinethomas:seaice/wave_ice_coupling

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@erinethomas erinethomas commented Dec 18, 2025

Add Full Wave-Sea Ice coupling for wave-enabled E3SM simulations. This PR is bit-for-bit with standard E3SM configurations (no active waves), it only generates climate changing impacts if an active wave compset is used.

This PR is the last of all PRs for the LRW (Low Res Wave) configuration of E3SM V3. This PR enables Full two-way coupling between WW3 and MPAS-SI.

This PR adds the following new features to E3SM:
-Floe Size Distribution in MPAS-SI
-Floe Breaking and re-distribution of floe size distribution due to waves.

Note: This PR requires the use of a new WW3 submodule that allow wave-ice coupling, as follows:
WW3:
E3SM-Project/WW3#7

[BFB] when no wave model is used.
[NML]

Overview of Results:
E3SM is stable with full wave coupling (65 yr PI control simulation is complete, however it appears the model has not yet reached equilibrium after 50 yrs from the introduction of wave coupling. A few examples of impact from the PI run with full wave coupling are included below. A few compare the low-res wave-enabled configuration (LRW) against a standard B-case with no waves:
Note: Determining the required 'spin up' time period needed in E3SM to allow fully coupled model to adjust to waves is a scientific research topic to be explored in future).

image image image Screenshot 2026-03-05 at 8 59 28 AM

A design document with the full description of all the new wave ice coupling features is here:
https://e3sm.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/pd/pages/4449861664/New+Feature+Design+Document+Wave-Sea+Ice+Interactions

Simulation Page for this PR:
FULL WAVE COUPLING Wave-SeaIce-Ocean-Atm:
https://e3sm.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CM/pages/5618499586/WaveIce_PIControl_WW3v6.07

Simulation pages for control-runs can be found here (with Links to MPAS-ANALYSIS and E3SM-DIAGS) :
No-Wave E3SM PI B-Case Control:
https://e3sm.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CM/pages/5451612161/WaveMomentum_PIControl_NoWave

Wave-Ocean-Atm Control (No wave Ice interactions) : https://e3sm.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CM/pages/5452103681/WaveMomentum_PIControl_WW3v6.07

@erinethomas erinethomas marked this pull request as draft December 18, 2025 22:08
@sbrus89 sbrus89 self-assigned this Dec 18, 2025
@sbrus89 sbrus89 added Wave MPAS-seaice Concerning the MPAS-seaice model Stealth PR has feature which, if turned on, could change climate. fka FCC NML labels Dec 18, 2025
@erinethomas erinethomas marked this pull request as ready for review January 13, 2026 15:35
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I may have just found a massive bug in this code (negative wave frequencies) - placing this PR back in draft mode util I figure it out.

@erinethomas erinethomas marked this pull request as draft January 29, 2026 23:14
@erinethomas erinethomas force-pushed the seaice/wave_ice_coupling branch from def312e to 054db8e Compare February 9, 2026 17:18
@erinethomas erinethomas marked this pull request as ready for review February 23, 2026 17:53
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erinethomas commented Feb 23, 2026

The negative frequency issue has been determined to NOT be an issue: the peak Frequency is initialized every coupling interval with "-999". In sea ice covered regions, the waves attenuate in the sea ice so that NO wave power exists in places, thus there is no valid peak frequency in these locations. We are leaving the fill value as -999 for now, since the peak frequency is not used in any physical processes or calculations (it is just a diagnostic output variable). This may be updated with a separate PR in the future.

@erinethomas erinethomas force-pushed the seaice/wave_ice_coupling branch 2 times, most recently from 9b2ee45 to 7f946bc Compare February 24, 2026 22:12
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rljacob commented Feb 26, 2026

@erinethomas do you have an ETA on when this will be ready?

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@erinethomas do you have an ETA on when this will be ready?

yes, I just need to clean the PR up, address the comments, add results figures to he description -this should be complete by the end of next week. then hopfully the final approval from any/all the reviewers will be quick.

@erinethomas erinethomas force-pushed the seaice/wave_ice_coupling branch 6 times, most recently from c7263ba to b1e2def Compare March 4, 2026 18:12
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Passes e3sm_cryo_developer test suite and

SMS.ne30pg2_r05_IcoswISC30E3r5.WCYCL1850.chrysalis_intel
ERS.ne30pg2_r05_IcoswISC30E3r5.WCYCL1850.chrysalis_intel
PET.ne30pg2_r05_IcoswISC30E3r5.WCYCL1850.chrysalis_intel
PEM.ne30pg2_r05_IcoswISC30E3r5.WCYCL1850.chrysalis_intel

Approved based on testing non-wave enabled configurations.

I have not tested the wave-sea ice coupling enabled here, which requires changes to Icepack until #8054 comes in. Looking over the wave-sea ice coupled runs results I didn't come across alarming differences, and the impacts are an area for scientific study.

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erinethomas commented Mar 16, 2026

Passes e3sm_cryo_developer test suite and

SMS.ne30pg2_r05_IcoswISC30E3r5.WCYCL1850.chrysalis_intel ERS.ne30pg2_r05_IcoswISC30E3r5.WCYCL1850.chrysalis_intel PET.ne30pg2_r05_IcoswISC30E3r5.WCYCL1850.chrysalis_intel PEM.ne30pg2_r05_IcoswISC30E3r5.WCYCL1850.chrysalis_intel

Approved based on testing non-wave enabled configurations.

I have not tested the wave-sea ice coupling enabled here, which requires changes to Icepack until #8054 comes in. Looking over the wave-sea ice coupled runs results I didn't come across alarming differences, and the impacts are an area for scientific study.

Just to clarify, this PR DOES allow for fully active wave-ice coupling with NO required updates to the current Icepack submodule.
It does, however, require updates to the WW3 submodule (which has a PR open: E3SM-Project/WW3#7).
Note- The icepack version 1.5.3 update will simply allow for Improved wave-ice coupling. (this will be a separate PR in the future)

@erinethomas erinethomas force-pushed the seaice/wave_ice_coupling branch from 7891a56 to 8c280ca Compare March 17, 2026 17:41
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This PR pass all relevant tests, and has been thoroughly tested.

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sbrus89 commented Mar 19, 2026

@erinethomas and I are currently tracking down some seg fault issues that showed up in my e3sm_wav_developer suite testing on Chrysalis. These show up specifically with the WAV_ICE_COUP = 'oneway' option that allows us to compare against current wave baselines.

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This PR is BFB with the previous baselines for the e3sm_wav_developer tests on Chrysalis when turning off the wave/ice coupling and other expected answer-changing options from this PR. This includes using: WAV_ICE_COUP="oneway", the default switch_E3SM file, icnumerics=.false. in ww3_grid_namelists.nml and the following mpas seaice namelist options:

config_nfloecategories = 0
config_nfrequencies = 0
config_use_column_waves = .false.
config_use_floe_size_distribution = .false.

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