The Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project (PAMIP) contribution to CMIP6: investigating the causes and consequences of polar amplification

• Published in: Geoscientific Model Development
• Main Authors: Smith, Doug, Screen, James, Deser, Clara, Cohen, Judah, Fyfe, John, García-Serrano, Javier, Jung, Thomas, Kattsov, Vladimir, Matei, Daniela, Msadek, Rym, Peings, Yannick, Sigmond, Michael, Ukita, Jinro, Yoon, Jin-Ho, Zhang, Xiangdong
• Other Authors: Department of Chemistry Bath, University of Bath Bath, Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC), United Kingdom Met Office Exeter, University of Exeter, National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder (NCAR), Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. (AER), Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputacion (BSC-CNS), Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Alfred Wegener Institute Potsdam, Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung = Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research = Institut Alfred-Wegener pour la recherche polaire et marine (AWI), Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft = Helmholtz Association-Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft = Helmholtz Association, Universität Bremen Deutschland = University of Bremen Germany = Université de Brême Allemagne, A. I. Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory (MGO), Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Climat, Environnement, Couplages et Incertitudes Toulouse (CECI), Centre Européen de Recherche et de Formation Avancée en Calcul Scientifique (CERFACS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Department of Earth System Science Irvine (ESS), University of California Irvine (UC Irvine), University of California (UC)-University of California (UC), Niigata University, Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division Richland, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: CCSD 2019
• Subjects: [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Antarctic; Arctic; Antarc*; Climate change; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02391671; https://hal.science/hal-02391671v1/document; https://hal.science/hal-02391671v1/file/gmd-12-1139-2019.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1139-2019

International audience Polar amplification – the phenomenon where external radiative forcing produces a larger change in surface temperature at high latitudes than the global average – is a key aspect of anthropogenic climate change, but its causes and consequences are not fully understood. The Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project (PAMIP) contribution to the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6; Eyring et al., 2016) seeks to improve our understanding of this phenomenon through a coordinated set of numerical model experiments documented here. In particular, PAMIP will address the following primary questions: (1) what are the relative roles of local sea ice and remote sea surface temperature changes in driving polar amplification? (2) How does the global climate system respond to changes in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice? These issues will be addressed with multi-model simulations that are forced with different combinations of sea ice and/or sea surface temperatures representing present-day, pre-industrial and future conditions. The use of three time periods allows the signals of interest to be diagnosed in multiple ways. Lower-priority tier experiments are proposed to investigate additional aspects and provide further understanding of the physical processes. These experiments will address the following specific questions: what role does ocean–atmosphere coupling play in the response to sea ice? How and why does the atmospheric response to Arctic sea ice depend on the pattern of sea ice forcing? How and why does the atmospheric response to Arctic sea ice depend on the model background state? What have been the roles of local sea ice and remote sea surface temperature in polar amplification, and the response to sea ice, over the recent period since 1979? How does the response to sea ice evolve on decadal and longer timescales?A key goal of PAMIP is to determine the real-world situation using imperfect climate models. Although the experiments proposed here form a coordinated set, we ...