Antarctic shelf ocean warming and sea ice melt affected by projected El Niño changes

• Published in: Nature Climate Change
• Main Authors: Cai, W, Jia, F, Li, S, Purich, A, Wang, G, Wu, L, Gan, B, Santoso, A, Geng, T, Ng, B, Yang, Y, Ferreira, D, Meehl, GA, McPhaden, MJ
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Springer Nature 2023
• Subjects: 13 Climate Action; anzsrc-for: 0401 Atmospheric Sciences; anzsrc-for: 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience; anzsrc-for: 0502 Environmental Science and Management; Antarc*; Antarctic; Ice Shelf; Sea ice; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/unsworks_82633; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01610-x

Antarctic shelf ocean warming affects melt of ice shelf/sheets and sea ice but projected changes vary vastly across climate models. A projected increase in El Niño variability has been found to slow future mid-latitude Southern Ocean warming but how this impacts the Antarctic shelf ocean is unknown. Here we show that a projected increase in El Niño variability accelerates Antarctic shelf ocean warming, hastening ice shelf/sheet melt but slowing sea ice reduction.