Climate studies with a coupled atmosphere-upper-ocean-ice-sheet model

Abstract

A two-dimensional zonally averaged model has been developed for simulating the seasonal cycle of the climate of the Northern Hemisphere. The atmospheric component of the model is based on the two-level quasi-geostrophic potential vorticity system of equations. At the surface, the model has land—sea resolution and incorporates detailed snow and sea-ice mass budgets. The upper ocean is represented by an integral mixed-layer model that takes into account the meridional advection and turbulent diffusion of heat. Comparisons between the computed present-day climate and climatological data show that the model does reasonably well in simulating the seasonal cycle of the temperature field. In response to a projected CO 2 trend based on the scenario of Wuebbles et al. (DOE/ NBB-0066 Technical Report 15 (1984)), the modelled annual hemispheric mean surface temperature increases by 2 °C between 1983 and 2063. In the high latitudes, the response undergoes significant seasonal variations. The largest surface warmings occur during autumn and spring. The model is then asynchronously coupled to a model that simulates the dynamics of the Greenland, the Eurasian and the North American ice sheets in order to investigate the transient response of the climate to the long-term insolation anomalies caused by orbital perturbations. Over the last interglacial-glacial cycle, the coupled model produces continental ice-volume changes that are in general agreement with the low-frequency part of palaeoclimatic records.