The Midlatitude Response to Polar Sea Ice Loss: Idealized Slab-Ocean Aquaplanet Experiments with Thermodynamic Sea Ice

Abstract

Abstract Slab-ocean aquaplanet simulations with thermodynamic sea ice are used to study the zonally symmetric mechanisms whereby polar sea ice loss impacts the midlatitude atmosphere. Imposed sea ice loss (difference without and with sea ice with historical CO2 concentration) leads to global warming, polar amplified warming, and a weakening of poleward atmospheric energy transport and the midlatitude storm-track intensity. The simulations confirm an energetic mechanism that predicts a weakening of storm-track intensity in response to sea ice loss, given the change of surface albedo and assuming a passive ocean. Namely, sea ice loss increases the absorption of shortwave radiation by the surface (following the decrease of surface albedo), which increases surface turbulent fluxes into the atmosphere thereby weakening poleward atmospheric energy transport. The storm-track intensity weakens because it dominates poleward energy transport. The quantitative prediction underlying the mechanism captures the weakening but underestimates its amplitude. The weakening is also consistent with weaker mean available potential energy (polar amplified warming) and scales with sea ice extent, which is controlled by the slab-ocean depth. The energetic mechanism also operates in response to sea ice loss due to melting (difference of the response to quadrupled CO2 with and without sea ice). Finally, the midlatitude response to sea ice loss in the aquaplanet agrees qualitatively with the response in more complex climate models. Namely, the storm-track intensity weakens and the energetic mechanism operates, but the method used to impose sea ice loss in coupled models impacts the surface response.