Arctic Sea Ice in CMIP6

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Notz, Dirk, Dörr, Jakob, Bailey, David, H., Blockley, Ed, Bushuk, Mitchell, Debernard, Jens Boldingh, Dekker, Evelien, Derepentigny, Patricia, Docquier, David, Fučkar, Neven, Fyfe, John, Jahn, Alexandra, Holland, Marika, Hunke, Elizabeth, Iovino, Doroteaciro, Khosravi, Narges, Madec, Gurvan, Massonnet, François, O'Farrell, Siobhan, Petty, Alek, Rana, Arun, Roach, Lettie, Rosenblum, Erica, rousset, clement, Semmler, Tido, Stroeve, Julienne, Toyoda, Takahiro, Tremblay, Bruno, Tsujino, Hiroyuki, Vancoppenolle, Martin
• Other Authors: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Computational Research Division LBNL Berkeley (CRD), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Berkeley (LBNL), Centre Georges Lemaître for Earth and Climate Research Louvain (TECLIM), Earth and Life Institute Louvain-La-Neuve (ELI), Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain (UCL)-Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Institute of Arctic Alpine Research University of Colorado Boulder (INSTAAR), University of Colorado Boulder, Oceanography Section Boulder, National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder (NCAR), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Nucleus for European Modeling of the Ocean (NEMO R&D ), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Montréal, McGill University = Université McGill Montréal, Canada, Meteorological Research Institute Tsukuba (MRI), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: [PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-GEO-PH]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Global warming; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02559658; https://hal.science/hal-02559658/document; https://hal.science/hal-02559658/file/SIMIP_2020.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL086749

International audience We examine CMIP6 simulations of Arctic sea‐ice area and volume. We find that CMIP6 models produce a wide spread of mean Arctic sea‐ice area, capturing the observational estimate within the multi‐model ensemble spread. The CMIP6 multi‐model ensemble mean provides a more realistic estimate of the sensitivity of September Arctic sea‐ice area to a given amount of anthropogenic CO 2 emissions and to a given amount of global warming, compared with earlier CMIP experiments. Still, most CMIP6 models fail to simulate at the same time a plausible evolution of sea‐ice area and of global mean surface temperature. In the vast majority of the available CMIP6 simulations, the Arctic Ocean becomes practically sea‐ice free (sea‐ice area < 1 million km 2 ) in September for the first time before the year 2050 in each of the four emission scenarios SSP1‐1.9, SSP1‐2.6, SSP2‐4.5 and SSP5‐8.5 examined here.