Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness
Arctic sea ice thickness distributions from models participating in the World Climate Research Programme Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) are evaluated against observations from submarines, aircraft and satellites. While it is encouraging that the mean thickness distributions fr...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:tc24545 2023-05-15T14:39:35+02:00 Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness Stroeve, J. Barrett, A. Serreze, M. Schweiger, A. 2018-09-27 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-1839-2014 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/8/1839/2014/ eng eng doi:10.5194/tc-8-1839-2014 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/8/1839/2014/ eISSN: 1994-0424 Text 2018 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-1839-2014 2020-07-20T16:24:54Z Arctic sea ice thickness distributions from models participating in the World Climate Research Programme Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) are evaluated against observations from submarines, aircraft and satellites. While it is encouraging that the mean thickness distributions from the models are in general agreement with observations, the spatial patterns of sea ice thickness are poorly represented in most models. The poor spatial representation of thickness patterns is associated with a failure of models to represent details of the mean atmospheric circulation pattern that governs the transport and spatial distribution of sea ice. The climate models as a whole also tend to underestimate the rate of ice volume loss from 1979 to 2013, though the multimodel ensemble mean trend remains within the uncertainty of that from the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System. Although large uncertainties in observational products complicate model evaluations, these results raise concerns regarding the ability of CMIP5 models to realistically represent the processes driving the decline of Arctic sea ice and to project the timing of when a seasonally ice-free Arctic may become a reality. Text Arctic Sea ice Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Arctic The Cryosphere 8 5 1839 1854 |
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Open Polar |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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ftcopernicus |
language |
English |
description |
Arctic sea ice thickness distributions from models participating in the World Climate Research Programme Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) are evaluated against observations from submarines, aircraft and satellites. While it is encouraging that the mean thickness distributions from the models are in general agreement with observations, the spatial patterns of sea ice thickness are poorly represented in most models. The poor spatial representation of thickness patterns is associated with a failure of models to represent details of the mean atmospheric circulation pattern that governs the transport and spatial distribution of sea ice. The climate models as a whole also tend to underestimate the rate of ice volume loss from 1979 to 2013, though the multimodel ensemble mean trend remains within the uncertainty of that from the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System. Although large uncertainties in observational products complicate model evaluations, these results raise concerns regarding the ability of CMIP5 models to realistically represent the processes driving the decline of Arctic sea ice and to project the timing of when a seasonally ice-free Arctic may become a reality. |
format |
Text |
author |
Stroeve, J. Barrett, A. Serreze, M. Schweiger, A. |
spellingShingle |
Stroeve, J. Barrett, A. Serreze, M. Schweiger, A. Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness |
author_facet |
Stroeve, J. Barrett, A. Serreze, M. Schweiger, A. |
author_sort |
Stroeve, J. |
title |
Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness |
title_short |
Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness |
title_full |
Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness |
title_fullStr |
Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness |
title_full_unstemmed |
Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness |
title_sort |
using records from submarine, aircraft and satellites to evaluate climate model simulations of arctic sea ice thickness |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-1839-2014 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/8/1839/2014/ |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Sea ice |
op_source |
eISSN: 1994-0424 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-8-1839-2014 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/8/1839/2014/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-1839-2014 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
8 |
container_issue |
5 |
container_start_page |
1839 |
op_container_end_page |
1854 |
_version_ |
1766311568992108544 |