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Multimodel Evidence for an Atmospheric Circulation Response to Arctic Sea Ice Loss in the CMIP5 Future Projections
Author(s) -
Zappa G.,
Pithan F.,
Shepherd T. G.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2017gl076096
Subject(s) - sea ice , climatology , arctic ice pack , atmospheric circulation , arctic , environmental science , lead (geology) , arctic sea ice decline , ice albedo feedback , geology , drift ice , atmospheric sciences , oceanography , geomorphology
Previous single‐model experiments have found that Arctic sea ice loss can influence the atmospheric circulation. To evaluate this process in a multimodel ensemble, a novel methodology is here presented and applied to infer the influence of Arctic sea ice loss in the CMIP5 future projections. Sea ice influence is estimated by comparing the circulation response in the RCP8.5 scenario against the circulation response to sea surface warming and CO 2 increase inferred from the AMIPFuture and AMIP4xCO2 experiments, where sea ice is unperturbed. Multimodel evidence of the impact of sea ice loss on midlatitude atmospheric circulation is identified in late winter (January–March), when the sea ice‐related surface heat flux perturbation is largest. Sea ice loss acts to suppress the projected poleward shift of the North Atlantic jet, to increase surface pressure in northern Siberia, and to lower it in North America. These features are consistent with previous single‐model studies, and the present results indicate that they are robust to model formulation.