Effect of Sea-ice Drift on the Onset of Snowball Climate on Rapidly Rotating Aqua-planets

Abstract

Abstract Previous studies have shown that sea-ice drift effectively promotes the onset of a globally ice-covered snowball climate for paleo Earth and for tidally locked planets around low-mass stars. Here, we investigate whether sea-ice drift can influence the stellar flux threshold for a snowball climate onset on rapidly rotating aqua-planets around a Sun-like star. Using a fully coupled atmosphere–land–ocean–sea-ice model and turning sea-ice drift on or off, circular orbits with no eccentricity (e = 0) and an eccentric orbit (e = 0.2) are examined. When sea-ice drift is turned off, the stellar flux threshold for the snowball onset is 1250–1275 and 1173–1199 W m−2 for e = 0 and 0.2, respectively. The difference is mainly due to the poleward retreat of sea ice and snow edges when the planet is close to the perihelion in the eccentric orbit. When sea-ice drift is turned on, the respective stellar flux threshold is 1335–1350 and 1250–1276 W m−2. This means that sea-ice drift increases the snowball onset threshold by ≈80 W m−2 for both e = 0 and 0.2, promoting the formation of a snowball climate state. We further show that oceanic dynamics have a small effect, ≤26 W m−2, on the snowball onset threshold. This is because oceanic heat transport becomes weaker and weaker as the sea-ice edge is approaching the equator. These results imply that sea-ice dynamics are important for the climate of planets close to the outer edge of the habitable zone, but oceanic heat transport is less important.