Abstract
Arctic sea-ice area and volume have substantially decreased since the beginning of the satellite era. Concurrently, the poleward heat transport from the North Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic has increased, partly contributing to the loss of sea ice. Increasing the horizontal resolution of general circulation models (GCMs) improves their ability to represent the complex interplay of processes at high latitudes. Here, we investigate the impact of model resolution on Arctic sea ice and Atlantic Ocean heat transport (OHT) by using five different state-of-the-art coupled GCMs (12 model configurations in total) that include dynamic representations of the ocean, atmosphere and sea ice. The models participate in the High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP) of the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Model results over the period 1950–2014 are compared to different observational datasets. In the models studied, a finer ocean resolution drives lower Arctic sea-ice area and volume and generally enhances Atlantic OHT. The representation of ocean surface characteristics, such as sea-surface temperature (SST) and velocity, is greatly improved by using a finer ocean resolution. This study highlights a clear anticorrelation at interannual time scales between Arctic sea ice (area and volume) and Atlantic OHT north of 60,^circ hbox {N} in the models studied. However, the strength of this relationship is not systematically impacted by model resolution. The higher the latitude to compute OHT, the stronger the relationship between sea-ice area/volume and OHT. Sea ice in the Barents/Kara and Greenland–Iceland–Norwegian (GIN) Seas is more strongly connected to Atlantic OHT than other Arctic seas.
Highlights
Earth and Life Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain‐la‐Neuve, BelgiumNational Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton, UKMet Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UKEuropean Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, Shinfield Park, Reading, UKAlfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, GermanyShirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, RussiaFondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui CambiamentiClimatici (CMCC), Bologna, ItalyThe recent accelerated loss of Arctic sea ice is undeniable, with declines in ice area and thickness during all months of the year and a progressive transition from multi-year to first-year ice (Vaughan et al 2013; Notz and Stroeve 2016; Barber et al 2017; Petty et al 2018)
For all of the models used in this study, we find a year-round decrease of Arctic sea-ice area and volume with finer ocean resolution
The mean sea-ice thickness clearly decreases with finer ocean resolution for ECMWF-IFS and AWI-CM, while it stays relatively similar for HadGEM3 (Fig. 5, Table 4);
Summary
National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, Shinfield Park, Reading, UK. Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany. The recent accelerated loss of Arctic sea ice is undeniable, with declines in ice area and thickness during all months of the year and a progressive transition from multi-year to first-year ice (Vaughan et al 2013; Notz and Stroeve 2016; Barber et al 2017; Petty et al 2018). Arctic sea-ice area has decreased by ∼ 2 million km from 1979 to 2016 (Onarheim et al 2018), i.e. an average loss of. ∼ 53000 km a−1, but sea-ice area displays strong regional and seasonal expressions.
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