Brief communication: Arctic sea ice thickness internal variability and its changes under historical and anthropogenic forcing

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: Van Achter, Guillian, Ponsoni, Leandro, Massonnet, François, Fichefet, Thierry, Legat, Vincent
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2020
• Subjects: article; Verlagsveröffentlichung; Arctic; Sea ice; The Cryosphere
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3479-2020; https://noa.gwlb.de/receive/cop_mods_00054382; https://noa.gwlb.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/cop_derivate_00054033/tc-14-3479-2020.pdf; https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/3479/2020/tc-14-3479-2020.pdf

We use model simulations from the CESM1-CAM5-BGC-LE dataset to characterise the Arctic sea ice thickness internal variability both spatially and temporally. These properties, and their stationarity, are investigated in three different contexts: (1) constant pre-industrial, (2) historical and (3) projected conditions. Spatial modes of variability show highly stationary patterns regardless of the forcing and mean state. A temporal analysis reveals two peaks of significant variability, and despite a non-stationarity on short timescales, they remain more or less stable until the first half of the 21st century, where they start to change once summer ice-free events occur, after 2050.