A model reconstruction of the Antarctic sea ice thickness and volume changes over 1980-2008 using data assimilation

• Published in: Ocean Modelling
• Main Authors: Massonnet, François, Mathiot, Pierre, Fichefet, Thierry, Goosse, Hugues, König Beatty, Christof, Vancoppenolle, Martin, Lavergne, Thomas
• Other Authors: Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique Georges Lemaître (UCL-ASTR), Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), 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)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), 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)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2013
• Subjects: geo; envir; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Weddell; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/J.OCEMOD.2013.01.003; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00912619

International audience Sea ice variability in the Southern Ocean has a complex spatio-temporal structure. In a global warming context, the Antarctic sea ice cover has slightly expanded over the recent decades. This increase in sea ice extent results, however, from the sum of positive and negative regional trends and is influenced by a wide range of modes of climate variability. An additional view on sea ice thickness and volume changes would improve our understanding. Still, no large-scale multi-decadal well-sampled record of Antarctic sea ice thickness exists to date. To address this issue, we assimilate real sea ice concentration data into the ocean-sea ice model NEMO-LIM2 using an ensemble Kalman filter and demonstrate the positive impacts on the global sea ice cover. This paper reports the 1980-2008 evolution (monthly anomalies, trends plus their uncertainty ranges) of sea ice volume and thickness in different sectors of the Southern Ocean. We find that the global Antarctic sea ice volume has risen at a pace of 355±338 km3/decade (5.6±5.3%/decade) during this period, with an increase in the Ross and Weddell Seas (150±124 and 209±362 km3/decade, respectively) and a decrease in the Amundsen-Bellingshausen Seas (-45±54 km3/decade). Sea ice volume anomalies co-vary well with extent anomalies, and exhibit yearly to decadal fluctuations. The results stress the need to analyze sea ice changes at the regional level first and then at the hemispheric level.