Evaluation of Arctic warming in mid-Pliocene climate simulations

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: W. de Nooijer, Q. Zhang, Q. Li, X. Li, Z. Zhang, C. Guo, K. H. Nisancioglu, A. M. Haywood, J. C. Tindall, S. J. Hunter, H. J. Dowsett, C. Stepanek, G. Lohmann, B. L. Otto-Bliesner, R. Feng, L. E. Sohl, M. A. Chandler, N. Tan, C. Contoux, G. Ramstein, M. L. J. Baatsen, A. S. von der Heydt, D. Chandan, W. R. Peltier, A. Abe-Ouchi, W.-L. Chan, Y. Kamae, C. M. Brierley
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2020
• Subjects: Environmental pollution; TD172-193.5; Environmental protection; TD169-171.8; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Arctic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2325-2020; https://doaj.org/article/45ffd6281f3943e8bcfb97e79cacf97e

Palaeoclimate simulations improve our understanding of the climate, inform us about the performance of climate models in a different climate scenario, and help to identify robust features of the climate system. Here, we analyse Arctic warming in an ensemble of 16 simulations of the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP), derived from the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project Phase 2 (PlioMIP2). The PlioMIP2 ensemble simulates Arctic (60–90 ∘ N) annual mean surface air temperature (SAT) increases of 3.7 to 11.6 ∘ C compared to the pre-industrial period, with a multi-model mean (MMM) increase of 7.2 ∘ C. The Arctic warming amplification ratio relative to global SAT anomalies in the ensemble ranges from 1.8 to 3.1 (MMM is 2.3). Sea ice extent anomalies range from −3.0 to <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M5" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">10.4</mn><mo>×</mo><msup><mn mathvariant="normal">10</mn><mn mathvariant="normal">6</mn></msup></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="59pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="54b7ed55f271963dee101ef6cd84cdcb"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="cp-16-2325-2020-ie00001.svg" width="59pt" height="14pt" src="cp-16-2325-2020-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg> km 2 , with a MMM anomaly of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M7" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">5.6</mn><mo>×</mo><msup><mn mathvariant="normal">10</mn><mn mathvariant="normal">6</mn></msup></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="53pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="065f8a2f34bd16a1e40c7a0482fac525"><svg:image ...