Sustained ocean changes contributed to sudden Antarctic sea ice retreat in late 2016

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Meehl, Gerald A., Arblaster, Julie M., Chung, Christine T. Y., Holland, Marika M., DuVivier, Alice, Thompson, LuAnne, Yang, Dongxia, Bitz, Cecilia M.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
• Subjects: Article; Antarctic; Curl; Indian; Pacific; Southern Ocean; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312884/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30600315; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07865-9

After nearly three decades of observed increasing trends of Antarctic sea ice extent, in September-October-November 2016, there was a dramatic decrease. Here we document factors that contributed to that decrease. An atmosphere-only model with a specified positive convective heating anomaly in the ea...