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Potential effects of the projected Antarctic sea-ice loss on the climate system

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Abstract

Climate models project that a reduction in the Antarctic sea-ice extent due to global warming in the future would exert an influential role on the climate system. However, due to the coupled nature of the climate system and various feedbacks present, the underlying mechanism is not well understood. The present study attempts to investigate the potential effects of the model projected Antarctic sea-ice loss on the climate system and understand the underlying mechanism causing such changes using coupled model simulations. The investigation suggests that the projected sea-ice loss will result in the localized surface warming accompanied with tropospheric warming that will be experienced globally. The surface evaporation will enhance, accompanied by an increase in the precipitation and cloud cover around Antarctica’s coastal periphery, with marginal changes observed over the continent’s interiors. The strength of the atmospheric circulation in the Southern Hemisphere will change significantly, resulting in an enhancement in the Polar cell and katabatic flow accompanied by a marginal reduction in the Ferrel and Hadley cells, causing an equatorial shift in the jet’s position. The eddy transport will also significantly weaken, leading to an overall reduction in the poleward energy transport at higher latitudes. These atmospheric circulation changes are essentially driven by the radiative budget, with more absorbed short-wave radiation reducing the poleward transport requirements. Compared to the reported uncoupled simulations studies, the remote global influence of sea ice loss noted in these coupled simulations which extends up to the Arctic highlights the strong pole-to-pole connections in the climate system through atmospheric and oceanic circulations.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the authors on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The research was partially supported by the DST Centre of Excellence in Climate Modeling at IIT Delhi. K. Tewari acknowledges the Ph.D. fellowship from MHRD. The authors would like to thank Dr. M. R. England for providing the model data and the helpful discussion. The authors acknowledge the use of the WACCM model of the CESM project supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Science (BER) of the U.S. Department of Energy and the use of NCAR NCL in this study.

Funding

The research was partially supported by the DST Centre of Excellence in Climate Modeling at IIT Delhi. K. Tewari acknowledges the Ph.D. fellowship from MHRD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, 110016, India

    Kamal Tewari & Anupam Dewan

  2. Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, 110016, India

    Saroj Kanta Mishra & Popat Salunke

  3. Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan

    Hisashi Ozawa

Authors
  1. Kamal Tewari
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  2. Saroj Kanta Mishra
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  3. Popat Salunke
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  4. Hisashi Ozawa
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  5. Anupam Dewan
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Correspondence to Saroj Kanta Mishra.

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Tewari, K., Mishra, S.K., Salunke, P. et al. Potential effects of the projected Antarctic sea-ice loss on the climate system. Clim Dyn 60, 589–601 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06320-2

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