Impact of ocean heat transport on the Arctic sea-ice decline: a model study with EC-Earth3

• Published in: Climate Dynamics
• Main Authors: Docquier, David, Koenigk, Torben, Fuentes-Franco, Ramon, Pasha Karami, Mehdi, Ruprich-Robert, Yohan
• Other Authors: Barcelona Supercomputing Center
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Link 2021
• Subjects: Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Desenvolupament humà i sostenible::Degradació ambiental::Canvi climàtic; Climatic changes; Sea ice > Arctic regions; Global warming; Sea ice; Ocean heat transport; Modeling; EC-Earth; Canvis climàtics; Simulacio per ordinador; Arctic; Bering Strait; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2117/340272; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05540-8

The recent increase in Atlantic and Pacific ocean heat transports has led to a decrease in Arctic sea-ice area and volume. As the respective contributions from both oceans in driving sea-ice loss is still uncertain, our study explores this. We use the EC-Earth3 coupled global climate model and perform different sensitivity experiments to gain insights into the relationships between ocean heat transport and Arctic sea ice. In these model experiments, the sea-surface temperature is artificially increased in different regions of the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans and with different levels of warming. All the experiments lead to enhanced ocean heat transport, and consequently to a decrease in Arctic sea-ice area and volume. We show that the wider the domain in which the sea-surface temperature is increased and the larger the level of warming, the larger the increase in ocean heat transport and the stronger the decrease in Arctic sea-ice area and volume. We also find that for a same amount of ocean heat transport increase, the reductions in Arctic sea-ice area and volume are stronger when the sea-surface temperature increase is imposed in the North Pacific, compared to the North Atlantic. This is explained by the lower-salinity water at the Bering Strait and atmospheric warming of the North Atlantic Ocean in the Pacific experiments. Finally, we find that the sea-ice loss is mainly driven by reduced basal growth along the sea-ice edge and enhanced basal melt in the Central Arctic. This confirms that the ocean heat transport is the primary driver of Arctic sea-ice loss in our experiments. DD is supported by the OSeaIce project (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/834493), which has received funding from the European Union’s (EU) Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 834493. TK and RFF are funded by the EU Horizon 2020 PRIMAVERA project, grant agreement No. 641727. MPK acknowledges support from the NordForsk research program Arctic Climate ...