Sensitivity of arctic surface temperatures to sea ice thickness changes using the regional climate model mar
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Since the beginning of this century, the Arctic Ocean has experienced a rapid decrease in sea ice extent, which strongly contributes to a pronounced regional climate warming known as “Arctic Amplification”, i.e. two times as large as the global average. Sea ice concentration (SIC) and sea ice thickness (SIT) mainly control changes in Arctic Ocean surface temperatures by insulating the warmer ocean water from the colder air above. Changes in atmospheric temperatures could perturb the Arctic climate, by affecting the regional atmospheric circulation. In most regional climate models (RCMs), SIC is prescribed from climate reanalyses whereas SIT is fixed in space and time, despite observations of large seasonal variations. Here, we compare climate simulations from the regional climate model MAR forced by the ERA-Interim and OSTIA reanalyses, using fixed SIT, to MAR simulations where SIT and SIC are prescribed by the GLORYS2V4 data set. The set of simulations covers the Arctic-CORDEX domain spanning the whole Arctic Ocean at a spatial resolution of 50 km for the period 2000-2015. This study aims to (1) improve the representation of surface temperatures, wind speed and direction within the Arctic boundary layer simulated by MAR, and to (2) estimate the sensitivity of Arctic surface temperatures and atmospheric circulation to prescribed SIT in MAR. Although our findings highlight the local sensitivity of surface temperatures to SIT changes, they also reveal that there is no clear benefit of using space and time varying SIT data sets to force MAR at 50 km resolution.
Source: ORBi (University of Liège)
Institution: University of Liège
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3009128564