Sensitivity of simulated regional Arctic climate to the choice of coupled model domain

• Published in: Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography
• Main Authors: Dmitry V. Sein, Nikolay V. Koldunov, Joaquim G. Pinto, William Cabos
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholm University Press 2014
• Subjects: regional climate model; Arctic Ocean; sea ice; downscaling; REMO; coupled model; Oceanography; GC1-1581; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Arctic; Pacific; Remo; North Atlantic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v66.23966; https://doaj.org/article/239d233e7dd74b1da388bdfa0113252f

The climate over the Arctic has undergone changes in recent decades. In order to evaluate the coupled response of the Arctic system to external and internal forcing, our study focuses on the estimation of regional climate variability and its dependence on large-scale atmospheric and regional ocean circulations. A global ocean–sea ice model with regionally high horizontal resolution is coupled to an atmospheric regional model and global terrestrial hydrology model. This way of coupling divides the global ocean model setup into two different domains: one coupled, where the ocean and the atmosphere are interacting, and one uncoupled, where the ocean model is driven by prescribed atmospheric forcing and runs in a so-called stand-alone mode. Therefore, selecting a specific area for the regional atmosphere implies that the ocean–atmosphere system can develop ‘freely’ in that area, whereas for the rest of the global ocean, the circulation is driven by prescribed atmospheric forcing without any feedbacks. Five different coupled setups are chosen for ensemble simulations. The choice of the coupled domains was done to estimate the influences of the Subtropical Atlantic, Eurasian and North Pacific regions on northern North Atlantic and Arctic climate. Our simulations show that the regional coupled ocean–atmosphere model is sensitive to the choice of the modelled area. The different model configurations reproduce differently both the mean climate and its variability. Only two out of five model setups were able to reproduce the Arctic climate as observed under recent climate conditions (ERA-40 Reanalysis). Evidence is found that the main source of uncertainty for Arctic climate variability and its predictability is the North Pacific. The prescription of North Pacific conditions in the regional model leads to significant correlation with observations, even if the whole North Atlantic is within the coupled model domain. However, the inclusion of the North Pacific area into the coupled system drastically changes the Arctic ...