Borey Hindcast Dataset Delivers 3-5 km Resolution Ocean-Ice-Wave Fields for Barents-Kara Seas 2019-2023

The dataset was generated with a chained WRF-NEMO-SI3-WW3 system on a 311×225 BARKA12 grid. WRF provided 6 km atmospheric forcing; NEMO-SI3 ran free with 40 vertical levels and daily 3-D fields; WW3 supplied hourly wave spectra. Component validation against ERA5, ASCAT, OSTIA and AMSR2 yields errors comparable to other Arctic regional systems, though wave-height bias remains -0.54 m.

Arctic coastal erosion rates have accelerated to 0.5-2 m yr⁻¹ along Barents Sea shores as declining sea ice lengthens the open-water fetch for autumn storms. Borey’s wave and ice-drift fields at 3-5 km can now resolve the local wave setup and alongshore sediment transport that coarser global products miss, directly informing infrastructure setback distances for ports and pipelines.

Prior observational studies (e.g., Irrgang et al., 2022, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment) documented erosion but lacked concurrent high-resolution forcing. Borey supplies the missing driver data, enabling process-based erosion models to be forced at the scale of individual headlands rather than 25 km grid cells.

Next steps include coupling Borey output to coastal morphodynamic models and extending the hindcast through 2030 under CMIP6 scenarios to quantify how projected ice-free seasons will alter erosion hotspots.