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A case study of a modelled episode of low Arctic sea ice

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Abstract

Simulations of the Arctic sea ice cover over the last 32 years generated by the HadGEM1 coupled climate model are able to capture the observed long term decline in mean September ice extent. HadGEM1 is also capable of producing an episode of low September ice extent of similar magnitude to the anomalously low extent observed in 2007. Using a heat budget analysis, together with diagnostics partitioning the changes in ice and snow mass into thermodynamic and dynamic components, we analyse the factors driving the long term decline in the ice mass and extent as well as those causing the modelled low ice event. The long term decline in the mass of ice and snow in HadGEM1 is largely due to extra melting during the summer, partly at the top surface of the ice, and partly via extra heating from the ocean as it warms due to the ice retreat. The episode of low summer ice extent is largely driven by the synoptic conditions over the summer moving the ice across and out of the Arctic basin, and also due to pre-conditioning of the snow and ice which is thinner than usual in the Eastern Arctic at the start of the melt season. This case study demonstrates that although HadGEM1 does not capture the persistent dipole pressure anomaly observed during the summer of 2007, it represents broadly similar mechanisms of generating a low ice extent.

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Notes

  1. Meier et al. (2007) noted a significant inconsistency in the original version of HadISST due to a change in the satellite data product in 1996/1997. The version of HadISST (vn1.2) presented here has had this inconsistency corrected (Titchner and Rayner, pers. com. 2009).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), through the DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101). We thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript.

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  1. Met Office Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK

    Ann B. Keen, Helene T. Hewitt & Jeff K. Ridley

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  1. Ann B. Keen
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  2. Helene T. Hewitt
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  3. Jeff K. Ridley
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Correspondence to Ann B. Keen.

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Keen, A.B., Hewitt, H.T. & Ridley, J.K. A case study of a modelled episode of low Arctic sea ice. Clim Dyn 41, 1229–1244 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1679-y

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