Arctic sea ice trends, variability and implications for seasonal ice forecasting

September Arctic sea ice extent over the period of satellite observations has a strong downward trend, accompanied by pronounced interannual variability with a detrended 1 year lag autocorrelation of essentially zero. We argue that through a combination of thinning and associated processes related t...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Main Authors: Serreze, Mark C., Stroeve, Julienne
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: The Royal Society 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0159
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2014.0159
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsta.2014.0159
Description
Summary:September Arctic sea ice extent over the period of satellite observations has a strong downward trend, accompanied by pronounced interannual variability with a detrended 1 year lag autocorrelation of essentially zero. We argue that through a combination of thinning and associated processes related to a warming climate (a stronger albedo feedback, a longer melt season, the lack of especially cold winters) the downward trend itself is steepening. The lack of autocorrelation manifests both the inherent large variability in summer atmospheric circulation patterns and that oceanic heat loss in winter acts as a negative (stabilizing) feedback, albeit insufficient to counter the steepening trend. These findings have implications for seasonal ice forecasting. In particular, while advances in observing sea ice thickness and assimilating thickness into coupled forecast systems have improved forecast skill, there remains an inherent limit to predictability owing to the largely chaotic nature of atmospheric variability.