Observed Antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity
The Antarctic sea ice area expanded significantly during 1979-2015. This is at odds with state-of-the-art climate models, which typically simulate a receding Antarctic sea ice cover in response to increasing greenhouse forcing. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that this discrepancy between models...
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6bc7j7j2 2023-11-05T03:35:18+01:00 Observed Antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity Sun, Shantong Eisenman, Ian 1060 2021-01-01 application/pdf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bc7j7j2 unknown eScholarship, University of California qt6bc7j7j2 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bc7j7j2 public Nature Communications, vol 12, iss 1 Earth Sciences Oceanography Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Climate Action article 2021 ftcdlib 2023-10-09T18:05:14Z The Antarctic sea ice area expanded significantly during 1979-2015. This is at odds with state-of-the-art climate models, which typically simulate a receding Antarctic sea ice cover in response to increasing greenhouse forcing. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that this discrepancy between models and observations occurs due to simulation biases in the sea ice drift velocity. As a control we use the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Large Ensemble, which has 40 realizations of past and future climate change that all undergo Antarctic sea ice retreat during recent decades. We modify CESM to replace the simulated sea ice velocity field with a satellite-derived estimate of the observed sea ice motion, and we simulate 3 realizations of recent climate change. We find that the Antarctic sea ice expands in all 3 of these realizations, with the simulated spatial structure of the expansion bearing resemblance to observations. The results suggest that the reason CESM has failed to capture the observed Antarctic sea ice expansion is due to simulation biases in the sea ice drift velocity, implying that an improved representation of sea ice motion is crucial for more accurate sea ice projections. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Sea ice University of California: eScholarship |
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Open Polar |
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University of California: eScholarship |
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topic |
Earth Sciences Oceanography Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Climate Action |
spellingShingle |
Earth Sciences Oceanography Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Climate Action Sun, Shantong Eisenman, Ian Observed Antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity |
topic_facet |
Earth Sciences Oceanography Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Climate Action |
description |
The Antarctic sea ice area expanded significantly during 1979-2015. This is at odds with state-of-the-art climate models, which typically simulate a receding Antarctic sea ice cover in response to increasing greenhouse forcing. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that this discrepancy between models and observations occurs due to simulation biases in the sea ice drift velocity. As a control we use the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Large Ensemble, which has 40 realizations of past and future climate change that all undergo Antarctic sea ice retreat during recent decades. We modify CESM to replace the simulated sea ice velocity field with a satellite-derived estimate of the observed sea ice motion, and we simulate 3 realizations of recent climate change. We find that the Antarctic sea ice expands in all 3 of these realizations, with the simulated spatial structure of the expansion bearing resemblance to observations. The results suggest that the reason CESM has failed to capture the observed Antarctic sea ice expansion is due to simulation biases in the sea ice drift velocity, implying that an improved representation of sea ice motion is crucial for more accurate sea ice projections. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Sun, Shantong Eisenman, Ian |
author_facet |
Sun, Shantong Eisenman, Ian |
author_sort |
Sun, Shantong |
title |
Observed Antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity |
title_short |
Observed Antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity |
title_full |
Observed Antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity |
title_fullStr |
Observed Antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity |
title_full_unstemmed |
Observed Antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity |
title_sort |
observed antarctic sea ice expansion reproduced in a climate model after correcting biases in sea ice drift velocity |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bc7j7j2 |
op_coverage |
1060 |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Sea ice |
op_source |
Nature Communications, vol 12, iss 1 |
op_relation |
qt6bc7j7j2 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bc7j7j2 |
op_rights |
public |
_version_ |
1781708143666921472 |