Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Detecting the statistical significance of the trends in the Antarctic sea ice extent: an indication for a turning point

Climate Dynamics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In the past decades, the Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) has been steadily increasing, but recently showed a sharp decline. Here we address the questions whether (1) the observed changes in the Antarctic SIE can be fully explained by natural variability and (2) whether the recent unprecedented decline in the SIE can serve as an indication that the long-term positive trend has reached a turning point entailing further decline. To study these questions, we extended the analysis period of previous studies (until 2013) by considering data until May 2018 and applied a statistical model which accurately reflects the natural variability of the SIE. Contrary to earlier detection studies we find that none of the annual trends of the SIE in whole Antarctica and its five sectors are statistically significant. When studying the seasonal changes, we find that the only trends in the Antarctic SIE that cannot be explained by natural variability and are probably tied to the warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, are the negative trends of the SIE in austral autumn (\(p=0.043\)) and February (\(p=0.012\)) in the Bellinghausen and Amundsen Seas (BellAm). In contrast, when the recent decline is omitted from the analysis and only data until 2015 are included, the (annual and seasonal) increases of the SIE in whole Antarctica and the Ross Sea become significant, while the significance of the decreasing trends in BellAm is slightly decreased. We consider this as a first indication that the Antarctic SIE may have reached a turning point towards a further decrease.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price includes VAT (France)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

References

  • Buldyrev SV, Goldberger AL, Havlin S, Mantegna RN, Matsa ME, Peng CK, Simons M, Stanley HE (1995) Long-range correlation properties of coding and noncoding DNA sequences: GenBank analysis. Phys Rev E 51(5):5084

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bunde A, Ludescher J, Franzke CLE, Büntgen U (2014) How significant is West Antarctic warming? Nat Geosci 7:246–247

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeConto RM, Pollard D (2016) Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise. Nature 531:591C597

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ding Z, Granger CWJ, Engle RF (1993) A long memory property of stock market returns and a new model. J Empir Financ 1:83

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Govindan RB, Kantz H (2004) Long-term correlations and multifractality in surface wind speed. EPL 68:184

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holland PR, Kwok R (2012) Wind-driven trends in Antarctic sea-ice drift. Nat Geosci 5:872–875

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurst HE (1950) The long-term storage capacity of reservoir. Trans Am Soc Civ Eng 116:2447

    Google Scholar 

  • Kantelhardt JW, Koscielny-Bunde E, Rego HHA, Havlin S, Bunde A (2001) Detecting long-range correlations with detrended fluctuation analysis. Phys A 295(3–4):441

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kiraly A, Janosi IM (2005) Detrended fluctuation analysis of daily temperature records: geographic dependence over Australia. Meteorol Atmos Phys 88(3–4):119–128

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koscielny-Bunde E, Bunde A, Havlin S, Roman HE, Goldreich Y, Schellnhuber HJ (1998) Indication of a universal persistence law governing atmospheric variability. Phys Rev Lett 81:729

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koscielny-Bunde E, Kantelhardt JW, Braun P, Bunde A, Havlin S (2006) Long-term persistence and multifractality of river runoff records: detrended fluctuation studies. J Hydrol 322:120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lennartz S, Bunde A (2009) Trend evaluation in records with long-term memory: application to global warming. Geophys Res Lett 36:L16706

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lennartz S, Bunde A (2011) Distribution of natural trends in long-term correlated records: a scaling approach. Phys Rev E 84:021129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lovejoy S, Schertzer D (2013) The weather and climate: emergent laws and multifractal cascades. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ludescher J, Bunde A, Franzke CLE, Schellnhuber HJ (2016) Long-term persistence enhances uncertainty about anthropogenic warming of Antarctica. Clim Dyn 46:263–271

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ludescher J, Bunde A, Schellnhuber HJ (2017) Statistical significance of seasonal warming/cooling trends. PNAS 114:E2998–E3003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mudelsee M (2007) Long memory of rivers from spatial aggregation. Water Resour Res 43:W01202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mudelsee M (2010) Climate time series analysis: classical statistical and bootstrap methods. Springer, Heidelberg

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Parkinson CL (2004) Southern ocean sea ice and its wider linkages: insights revealed from models and observations. Antarct Sci 16:387C400

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peng C-K, Buldyrev SV, Goldberger AL, Havlin S, Simons M, Stanley HE (1993) Finite-size effects on long-range correlations: implications for analyzing DNA sequences. Phys Rev E 47:3730–3733

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Polvani LM, Smith KL (2013) Can natural variability explain observed Antarctic sea ice trends? New modeling evidence from CMIP5. Geophys Res Lett 40:3195–3199

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Previdi M, Polvani LM (2014) Climate system response to stratospheric ozone depletion and recovery. Q J R Meteorol Soc 140:2401–2419

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Purich A, Cai W, England MH, Cowan T (2016) Evidence for link between modelled trends in Antarctic sea ice and underestimated westerly wind changes. Nat Commun 7:10409

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rind D, Chandler M, Lerner J, Martinson DG, Yuan X (2001) Climate response to basin-specific changes in latitudinal temperature gradients and implications for sea ice variability. J Geophys Res 106:20161–20173

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sigmond M, Fyfe JC (2010) Has the ozone hole contributed to increased Antarctic sea ice extent? Geophys Res Lett 37:L18502

    Google Scholar 

  • Sigmond M, Fyfe JC (2014) The Antarctic sea ice response to the ozone hole in climate models. J Clim 27:1336–1342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stammerjohn SE, Martinson DG, Smith RC, Yuan X, Rind D (2008) Trends in Antarctic annual sea ice retreat and advance and their relation to El Ni\(\tilde{{\rm n}}\)o–Southern Oscillation and Southern Annular Mode variability. J Geophys Res 113:C03S90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson DWJ, Solomon S, Kushner PJ, England MH, Grise KM, Karoly DJ (2011) Signatures of the Antarctic ozone hole in Southern Hemisphere surface climate change. Nat Geosci 4:741–749

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turcotte D (1997) Fractals and chaos in geology and geophysics, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Turner J, Comiso JC (2017) Solve Antarcticas sea-ice puzzle. Nature 547:275

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner J, Comiso JC, Marshall GJ, Lachlan-Cope TA, Bracegirdle TJ, Maksym T, Meredith MP, Wang Z, Orr A (2009) Non-annular atmospheric circulation change induced by stratospheric ozone depletion and its role in the recent increase of Antarctic sea ice extent. Geophys Res Lett 36:L08502

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner J, Bracegirdle TJ, Phillips T, Marshall GJ, Hosking JS (2013) An initial assessment of Antarctic sea ice extent in the CMIP5 models. J Clim 26:1473–1484

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner J, Hosking JS, Bracegirdle TJ, Marshall GJ, Phillips T (2015) Recent changes in Antarctic Sea Ice. Philos Trans R Soc A 373:20140163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner J, Hosking JS, Marshall GJ, Phillips T, Bracegirdle TJ (2016) Antarctic sea ice increase consistent with intrinsic variability of the Amundsen Sea Low. Clim Dyn 46:2391–2402

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaughan DG et al (2013) Observations: cryosphere. In: Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

  • Yuan N, Ding M, Huang Y, Fu Z, Xoplaki E, Luterbacher J (2015) On the long-term climate memory in the surface air temperature records over Antarctica: a nonnegligible factor for trend evaluation. J Clim 28:5922–5934

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yuan N, Ding M, Ludescher J, Bunde A (2017) Increase of the Antarctic sea ice extent is highly significant only in the Ross Sea. Sci Rep 7:41096

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zwally HJ, Comiso JC, Parkinson CL, Cavalieri DJ (2002) Variability of Antarctic sea ice 1979–1998. J Geophys Res 107:3041

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

N.Y. gratefully acknowledges supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 41675088) and from the CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program. We like to thank Minghu Ding and Yan Huang for helpful discussions.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Josef Ludescher

    Present address: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Theoretical Physics, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 16, 35392, Giessen, Germany

    Josef Ludescher & Armin Bunde

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Regional Climate Environment for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Naiming Yuan

Authors
  1. Josef Ludescher
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Naiming Yuan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Armin Bunde
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Naiming Yuan.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ludescher, J., Yuan, N. & Bunde, A. Detecting the statistical significance of the trends in the Antarctic sea ice extent: an indication for a turning point. Clim Dyn 53, 237–244 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4579-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4579-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation