Abstract
AbstractThe impact of Arctic sea ice decline on the weather and climate in mid-latitudes is still much debated, with observation suggesting a strong and models a much weaker link. In this study, we use the atmospheric model OpenIFS, in a set of model experiments following the protocol outlined in the Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project (PAMIP), to investigate whether the simulated atmospheric response to future changes in Arctic sea ice fundamentally depends on model resolution. More specifically, we increase the horizontal resolution of the model from 125km to 39km with 91 vertical levels; in a second step resolution is further increased to 16km with 137 levels in the vertical. The model does produce a response to sea ice decline with a weaker mid latitude Atlantic jet and increased blocking in the high latitude Atlantic, but no sensitivity to resolution can be detected with 100 members. Furthermore we find that the ensemble convergence toward the mean is not impacted by the model resolutions considered here.
Highlights
Extreme events such as cold-air outbreaks, long-lasting atmospheric winter blocking, and heavy snow conditions have often been connected with the strongly declining Arctic sea ice in recent decades (Vihma 2014; Overland et al 2011; Cohen et al 2018b), in the scientific literature and in the media
To put the responses to sea ice decline into perspective, we succinctly show the 500-hPa geopotential height bias of OpenIFS with present-day forcing compared to ERA5 reanalysis data
Experimental design, we did not find any evidence that key midlatitude responses to sea ice decline would be affected by increasing the resolution from TL159 (125 km, 91 layers) first to TL511 (39 km, 91 layers) and to TL1279 (16 km, 137 layers)
Summary
STREFFING ET AL. Response of Northern Hemisphere Weather and Climate to Arctic Sea Ice Decline: Resolution Independence in Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project (PAMIP) Simulations JAN STREFFING,a,b TIDO SEMMLER,a LORENZO ZAMPIERI,a AND THOMAS JUNGa,c a Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany b Jacobs University Bremen, Bremen, Germany c University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany (Manuscript received 30 December 2019, in final form 26 July 2021)
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