Brief Communication: Antarctic sea ice loss brings observed trends into agreement with climate models

• Main Authors: Holmes, Caroline R., Bracegirdle, Thomas J., Holland, Paul R., Stroeve, Julienne, Wilkinson, Jeremy
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2881; https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-2023-2881/

Most climate models do not reproduce the 1979–2014 increase in Antarctic sea ice cover. This was a contributing factor in successive Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports allocating low confidence to model projections of sea ice over the 21st century. We show that recent rapid declines bring observed sea ice area trends into line with the models. This implies that projections of substantial future Antarctic sea ice loss may be more reliable than previously thought, with substantial implications for the evolution of the Southern Hemisphere climate.