Spurious Climate Impacts in Coupled Sea Ice Loss Simulations
Abstract Previous studies have used coupled climate model simulations with perturbed sea ice covers to assess the impact of future Arctic sea ice loss. The results of these studies suggest that Arctic sea ice loss will cause substantial climate impacts in the Arctic and beyond. The approaches used i...
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt0288r4qf 2023-06-11T04:03:13+02:00 Spurious Climate Impacts in Coupled Sea Ice Loss Simulations England, Mark R Eisenman, Ian Wagner, Till JW 7401 - 7411 2022-11-15 application/pdf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0288r4qf unknown eScholarship, University of California qt0288r4qf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0288r4qf public Journal of Climate, vol 35, iss 22 Climate Action Sea ice Climate change Climate models Idealized models Atmospheric Sciences Oceanography Geomatic Engineering Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences article 2022 ftcdlib 2023-04-24T17:55:47Z Abstract Previous studies have used coupled climate model simulations with perturbed sea ice covers to assess the impact of future Arctic sea ice loss. The results of these studies suggest that Arctic sea ice loss will cause substantial climate impacts in the Arctic and beyond. The approaches used in these simulations can be broadly categorized into three methods: adding a ghost flux to the sea ice module, nudging, and modifying the surface albedo. Here we show that all three methods ultimately add heat to the Arctic in order to melt the sea ice, and that this artificial heating causes a spurious warming signal that is added to the warming that occurs due to sea ice loss alone. We illustrate this using an idealized climate model, which provides a preliminary rough estimate of the effect. In this model, the annual-mean warming due to sea ice loss alone can be directly calculated. We compare this with the warming that would be attributed to sea ice loss using each of the three methods in the idealized model. The results suggest that each method substantially overestimates the warming due to sea ice loss alone, overestimating the surface warming throughout the Northern Hemisphere by a factor of 1.5–2 in the idealized model. Hence, these results suggest that previous coupled climate modeling studies have overestimated the climate response to sea ice loss. Article in Journal/Newspaper albedo Arctic Climate change Sea ice University of California: eScholarship Arctic |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of California: eScholarship |
op_collection_id |
ftcdlib |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Climate Action Sea ice Climate change Climate models Idealized models Atmospheric Sciences Oceanography Geomatic Engineering Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Climate Action Sea ice Climate change Climate models Idealized models Atmospheric Sciences Oceanography Geomatic Engineering Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences England, Mark R Eisenman, Ian Wagner, Till JW Spurious Climate Impacts in Coupled Sea Ice Loss Simulations |
topic_facet |
Climate Action Sea ice Climate change Climate models Idealized models Atmospheric Sciences Oceanography Geomatic Engineering Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
description |
Abstract Previous studies have used coupled climate model simulations with perturbed sea ice covers to assess the impact of future Arctic sea ice loss. The results of these studies suggest that Arctic sea ice loss will cause substantial climate impacts in the Arctic and beyond. The approaches used in these simulations can be broadly categorized into three methods: adding a ghost flux to the sea ice module, nudging, and modifying the surface albedo. Here we show that all three methods ultimately add heat to the Arctic in order to melt the sea ice, and that this artificial heating causes a spurious warming signal that is added to the warming that occurs due to sea ice loss alone. We illustrate this using an idealized climate model, which provides a preliminary rough estimate of the effect. In this model, the annual-mean warming due to sea ice loss alone can be directly calculated. We compare this with the warming that would be attributed to sea ice loss using each of the three methods in the idealized model. The results suggest that each method substantially overestimates the warming due to sea ice loss alone, overestimating the surface warming throughout the Northern Hemisphere by a factor of 1.5–2 in the idealized model. Hence, these results suggest that previous coupled climate modeling studies have overestimated the climate response to sea ice loss. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
England, Mark R Eisenman, Ian Wagner, Till JW |
author_facet |
England, Mark R Eisenman, Ian Wagner, Till JW |
author_sort |
England, Mark R |
title |
Spurious Climate Impacts in Coupled Sea Ice Loss Simulations |
title_short |
Spurious Climate Impacts in Coupled Sea Ice Loss Simulations |
title_full |
Spurious Climate Impacts in Coupled Sea Ice Loss Simulations |
title_fullStr |
Spurious Climate Impacts in Coupled Sea Ice Loss Simulations |
title_full_unstemmed |
Spurious Climate Impacts in Coupled Sea Ice Loss Simulations |
title_sort |
spurious climate impacts in coupled sea ice loss simulations |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0288r4qf |
op_coverage |
7401 - 7411 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
albedo Arctic Climate change Sea ice |
genre_facet |
albedo Arctic Climate change Sea ice |
op_source |
Journal of Climate, vol 35, iss 22 |
op_relation |
qt0288r4qf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0288r4qf |
op_rights |
public |
_version_ |
1768377802896179200 |