A new discretization for the elastic-viscous-plastic (EVP) sea ice dynamics model incorporates metric terms to account for grid curvature effects in curvilinear coordinate systems. A fundamental property of the viscousplastic ice rheology that is invariant under changes of coordinate system is utilized; namely, the work done by internal forces, to derive an energy dissipative discretization of the divergence of the stress tensor that includes metric terms. Comparisons of simulations using an

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... er EVP numerical model with the new formulation highlight the effect of the metric terms, which can be significant when ice deformation is allowed to affect the ice strength.