Impacts of sea ice mushy thermodynamics in the Antarctic on the coupled Earth system

The experiment in which sea ice is a more realistic "mushy" mixture of solid ice and brine has a substantial increase in coastal sea ice frazil and snow ice production that is accompanied by decreasing bottom ice growth and increasing bottom melt.

The more realistic "mushy" physics leads to an increase in water mass formation at denser water classes due primarily to surface ice processes. As a result, the subsurface ocean is denser, saltier, and there is an increase in Antarctic Bottom Water formation of similar to 0.5 Sv. For the atmosphere, "mushy" ice physics leads to decreased turbulent heat flux and low level cloud cover near the Antarctic coast.