Abstract
We examine the effects of a general sea ice-atmosphere feedback (SAF) over the Barents Sea by turning it on and off in a coupled climate model. The SAF is “turned off” by forcing the atmosphere with surface turbulent and longwave heat fluxes and surface temperatures that reflect climatological sea ice cover over the Barents Sea, while allowing the sea ice and sea surface temperature (SST) to freely evolve. Suppressing the SAF reduces the variability of near-surface air temperature (T), sea ice concentration (I) , and SST averaged over the Barents Sea by up to 35 %, confirming the existence of a positive thermodynamically-driven SAF found in prior uncoupled modeling studies. Decreased interannual variability accounts for most of the total reduction in I, T, and SST variability, and the largest reductions in variability occur during the winter sea ice growth and spring melt seasons. In contrast to the results from the coupled model experiment, the total variances of I, T, and SST do not significantly change in response to suppressing the SAF in a simple vector autoregressive model, indicating that the SAF is nonlinear.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander MA, Bhatt US, Walsh JE, Timlin MS, Miller JS, Scott JD (2004) The atmospheric response to realistic Arctic sea ice anomalies in an AGCM during winter. J Clim 17:890–905
Bailey D, Hannay C, Holland M, Neale R (2013) Slab ocean model forcing. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO. http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/cesm1.1/data8/doc/som
Bitz CM, Shell KM, Gent PR, Bailey D, Danabasoglu G, Armour KC, Holland MM, Kiehl JT (2012) Climate sensitivity of the community climate system model version 4. J Clim 25:3053–3070. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00290.1
Boé J, Hall A, Qu X (2009) Current GCMs’ unrealistic negative feedback in the Arctic. J Clim 22:4682–4695. doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2885.1
Bony S, Colman R, Kattsov VM, Allan RP, Bretherton CS, Dufresne JL, Hall A, Hallegatte S, Holland MM, Ingram W, Randall DA, Soden BJ, Tselioudis G, Webb MJ (2006) How well do we understand and evaluate climate change feedback processes? J Clim 19:3445–3482
Curry JA, Schramm JL, Ebert EE (1995) Sea ice-albedo climate feedback mechanism. J Clim 8:240–247
Deser C, Walsh JE, Timlin MS (2000) Arctic sea ice variability in the context of recent atmospheric circulation trends. J Clim 13:617–633
Deser C, Magnusdottir G, Saravanan R, Phillips AS (2004) The effects of North Atlantic SST and sea-ice anomalies on the winter circulation in CCM3. Part II: Direct and indirect components of the response. J Clim 17:877–889. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<0877:TEONAS>2.0.CO;2
Efron B (1979) Bootstrap methods: another look at the jackknife. Ann Stat 7:1–26
Enders W (2004) Applied econometric time series, 2nd edn. Wiley, Hoboken
Frankignoul C, Sennéchael N, Cauchy P (2014) Observed atmospheric response to cold season sea ice variability in the Arctic. J Clim 27:1243–1254. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00189.1
Gent PR, Danabasoglu G, Donner LJ, Holland MM, Hunke EC, Jayne SR, Lawrence DM, Neale RB, Rasch PJ, Vertenstein M, Worley PH, Yang ZL, Zhang M (2011) The community climate system model version 4. J Clim 24:4973–4991. doi:10.1175/2011JCLI4083.1
Hall A (2004) The role of surface albedo feedback in climate. J Clim 17:1550–1568. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<1550:TROSAF>2.0.CO;2
Hunke EC, Lipscomb WH (2008) CICE: The Los Alamos sea ice model user’s manual, version 4. Tech. Rep. LA-CC-06-012, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Jung T, Hilmer M (2001) The link between the North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic sea ice export through Fram Strait. J Clim 14:3932–3943
Kauffman BG, Jacob R, Craig T, Large WG (2004) The CCSM coupler version 6.0 user’s guide, source code reference, and scientific description
Kwok R, Cunningham GF, Pang SS (2004) Fram Strait sea ice outflow. J Geophys Res 109(C1):C01,009. doi:10.1029/2003JC001785
Kwok R, Cunningham GF, Wensnahan M, Rigor I, Zwally HJ, Yi D (2009) Thinning and volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover. J Geophys Res 114:C07005. doi:10.1029/2009JC005312
Liptak J, Strong C (2014a) A model-based decomposition of the sea ice-atmosphere feedback over the Barents Sea during winter. J Clim 27:2533–2544. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00371.1
Liptak J, Strong C (2014b) The winter atmospheric response to sea ice anomalies in the Barents Sea. J Clim 27:914–924. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00186.1
Magnusdottir G, Deser C, Saravanan R (2004) The effects of North Atlantic SST and sea ice anomalies on the winter circulation in CCM3. Part I: main features and storm track characteristics of the response. J Clim 17:857–876. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<0857:TEONAS>2.0.CO;2
Maslanik J, Drobot S, Fowler C, Emery W, Barry R (2007a) On the Arctic climate paradox and the continuing role of atmospheric circulation in affecting sea ice conditions. Geophys Res Lett. doi:10.1029/2006GL028269
Maslanik J, Drobot S, Fowler C, Emery W, Barry R (2007b) A younger, thinner Arctic ice cover: increased potential for rapid, extensive sea-ice loss. Geophys Res Lett. doi:10.1029/2007GL032043
Neale RB, Richter JH, Conley AJ, Park S, Lauritzen PH, Gettelman A, Williamson DL, Rasch PJ, Vavrus SJ, Taylor MA, Collins WD, Zhang M, Lin S (2010) Description of the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM 4.0). Tech. Rep. NCAR/TN-485+STR, National Center For Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
Nghiem SV, Rigor IG, Perovich DK, Clemente-Colón P, Weatherly JW, Neumann G (2007) Rapid reduction of Arctic perennial sea ice. Geophys Res Lett. doi:10.1029/2007GL031138
Parkinson CL, Cavalieri DJ (2008) Arctic sea ice variability and trends, 1979–2006. J Geophys Res 113(C07):003. doi:10.1029/2007JC004558
Perovich DK, Richter-Menge JA (2009) Loss of sea ice in the Arctic. Ann Rev Mar Sci 1:417–441. doi:10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163805
Pithan F, Mauritsen T (2014) Arctic amplification dominated by temperature feedbacks in contemporary climate models. Nat Geosci. doi:10.1038/ngeo2071
Politis DN, White H (2004) Automatic block-length selection for the dependent bootstrap. Econ Rev 23:53–70. doi:10.1081/ETC-12002
Rigor IG, Wallace JM (2004) Variations in the age of Arctic sea-ice and summer sea-ice extent. Geophys Res Lett 31(L09):401. doi:10.1029/2004GL019492
Serreze MC, Holland MM, Stroeve J (2007) Perspectives on the Arctic’s shrinking sea-ice cover. Science 315:1533–1536
Sims CA (1980) Macroeconomics and reality. Econometrica 48:1–48. doi:10.2307/1912017
Smedsrud LH, Sirevaag A, Kloster K, Sorteberg A, Sandven S (2011) Recent wind driven high sea ice export in the Fram Strait contributes to Arctic sea ice decline. The Cryosphere Discuss 5:1311–1334
Stroeve JC, Markus T, Boisvert L, Miller J, Barrett A (2014) Changes in Arctic melt season and implications for sea ice loss. Geophys Res Lett 41:1216–1225. doi:10.1002/2013GL058951
Strong C, Magnusdottir G (2010) Dependence of NAO variability on coupling with sea ice. Clim Dyn 36:1681–1689. doi:10.1007/s00382-010-0752-z
Strong C, Magnusdottir G, Stern H (2009) Observed feedback between winter sea ice and the North Atlantic Oscillation. J Clim 22:6021–6032
Tsukernik M, Deser C, Alexander M, Tomas R (2010) Atmospheric forcing of Fram Strait sea ice export: a closer look. Clim Dyn 35:1349–1360
Ukita J, Honda M, Nakamura H, Tachibana Y, Cavlieri DJ, Parkinson CL, Koide H, Yamamoto K (2007) Northern Hemisphere sea ice variability: lag structure and its implications. Tellus Ser A 59:261–272. doi:10.111/j.1600-0870.2006.0223.x
Vinje T (2001) Anomalies and trends in sea-ice extent and atmospheric circulation in the Nordic Seas during the period 1864–1998. J Clim 14:3503–3517
Wilks DS (2011) Statistical methods in the atmospheric sciences, 3rd edn. Elsevier Inc., California
Wu B, Wang J, Walsh JE (2006) Dipole anomaly in the winter Arctic atmosphere and its association with sea ice motion. J Clim 19(2):210–225. doi:10.1175/JCLI3619.1
Yamamoto K, Tachibana Y, Honda M, Ukita J (2006) Intra-seasonal relationship between the Northern Hemisphere sea ice variability and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Geophys Res Lett 33(L14):711. doi:10.1029/2006GL026286
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Arctic Sciences Division Grant 1022485. Provision of computer infrastructure by the Center for High Performance Computing at the University of Utah is gratefully acknowledged. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful commentary.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liptak, J., Strong, C. A modeling investigation of the Arctic sea ice-atmosphere feedback. Clim Dyn 47, 2471–2480 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-2976-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-2976-z