Hi all,
My question relates to the logic surrounding the energy used to melt solid precipitation in coupled configurations, as implemented in sbccpl. In older versions of NEMO, such as 3.4.1, only the latent heat required to melt solid precipitation falling over open ocean was extracted from qns_tot. This made sense.
In newer versions of NEMO, the equivalent lines in sbccpl have been modified such that the energy to melt snow over open ocean, and snow falling over sea-ice, is removed from qns_tot. I have not found any good description of the logic for this in the manuals (perhaps I missed it).
It seems to me like it could be a kind of double counting. For snow falling on sea-ice, its is not clear the latent heat of melt should immediately be removed, because as I understand it, that snow can persist on top of sea-ice, and later on, energy to melt that snow can be consumed in the ice model.
Does anyone have the logic for this implementation, and the change between versions? I’m perhaps missing something obvious. thanks.
