The heterogeneity of sea ice in the marginal ice zone (MIZ) causes multiscale secondary circulations that are challenging to model or observe. Their absent or inadequate representation in ocean-atmosphere interactions in climate models is partially responsible for the underestimation of Arctic sea ice loss. Observationally, such circulations obfuscate the interpretation of polar atmospheric chemistry measurements, among others. To address this open challenge, large-eddy simulations are conducted over real-world satellite-sensed sea ice maps, and idealizations of these maps that alter the ice pattern but conserve its fraction, showing that the ice fraction of a surface is not sufficient to predict surface heat flux. In a second suite of simulations, three other heterogeneity metrics (representing the surface fragmentation, tortuosity, and patch size variability) are then introduced; varying them among simulations suggests that surface-air interactions will be significantly impacted. Based on these results, we then show, using a multi-linear regression of map features, that MIZ surface parameterizations in Earth Systems Models can be improved if they account for these various features of the surface. Finally, the simulations also illustrate that the contribution of roughness changes to the resulting atmospheric circulations are minimal compared to thermal heterogeneity in the MIZ.

Unsteady land-sea breezes (LSBs) resulting from time-varying surface thermal contrasts Δθ(t) are explored in the presence of a constant synoptic pressure forcing, Mg, when the latter is oriented from sea to land (α=0°), versus land to sea (α=180°). Large eddy simulations reveal the development of four distinctive regimes depending on the joint interaction between (Mg, α) and Δθ(t) in modulating the fine-scale dynamics. Time lags, computed as the shifts that maximize correlation coefficients of the dynamics between transient and the corresponding steady state scenarios at Δθ=Δθmax, are found to be significant and to extend 2 hours longer for α=0° compared to α=180°. These diurnal dynamics result in non-equilibrium flows that behave differently over the two patches for both α’s. Turbulence is found to be out of equilibrium with the mean flow, and the mean itself is found to be out of equilibrium with the thermal forcing. The sea surface heat flux is consistently more sensitive than its land counterpart to the time-varying external forcing Δθ(t), and more so for synoptic forcing from land-to-sea (α=180°). Hence, although the land reaches equilibrium faster, the sea patch is found to exert a stronger control on the final turbulence-mean flow equilibrium response. Finally, vertical velocity profile at the shore and shore-normal velocity transects at the first grid level are shown to encode the multiscale regimes of the LSBs evolution, and can thus be used to identify these regimes using k-means clustering.