The Role of Sea Ice Thickness Distribution in the Arctic Sea Ice Potential Predictability: A Diagnostic Approach with a Coupled GCM

AbstractThe intrinsic seasonal predictability of Arctic sea ice is investigated in a 400-yr-long preindustrial simulation performed with the Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques Coupled Global Climate Model, version 3.3 (CNRM-CM3.3). The skill of several predictors of the pan-Arctic sea ice area was quantified: the sea ice area itself, the pan-Arctic sea ice volume, and some areal predictors built from the subgrid ice thickness distribution (ITD). Sea ice area provides a potential predictability of about 3 months, which is consistent with previous studies using model and observation data. Sea ice volume predictive skill for winter sea ice area prediction is weak. Nevertheless, there is a higher potential to predict the September ice area with the June volume anomaly than with the June area anomaly. Using ITD-based predictors, two “regimes” of predictability were highlighted. The first one, a “persistence regime,” applies to winter/early spring sea ice seasonal predictability. The winter sea ice c...

[1]  H. Stern,et al.  What is the Trajectory of Arctic Sea Ice , 2013 .

[2]  Dana E. Veron,et al.  Winter Northern Hemisphere weather patterns remember summer Arctic sea‐ice extent , 2009 .

[3]  Dirk Notz,et al.  The future of ice sheets and sea ice: Between reversible retreat and unstoppable loss , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[4]  Charles Fowler,et al.  A long‐range forecast of Arctic summer sea‐ice minimum extent , 2006 .

[5]  E. DeWeaver,et al.  Persistence and Inherent Predictability of Arctic Sea Ice in a GCM Ensemble and Observations , 2011 .

[6]  Jean-François Mahfouf,et al.  A new snow parameterization for the Météo-France climate model , 1995 .

[7]  Willem A. Landman,et al.  Climate change 2007 : the physical science basis, S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, M. Marquis, K. Averyt, M.M.B. Tignor, H. LeRoy Miller, Jr. and Z. Chen (Eds.) : book review , 2010 .

[8]  Elizabeth C. Kent,et al.  Global analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century , 2003 .

[9]  I. Polyakov,et al.  Arctic decadal and interdecadal variability , 2000 .

[10]  J. Dufresne,et al.  Climate change under aggressive mitigation: the ENSEMBLES multi-model experiment , 2011 .

[11]  D. Salas Mélia,et al.  A global coupled sea ice–ocean model , 2002 .

[12]  E. Hunke,et al.  An Elastic–Viscous–Plastic Model for Sea Ice Dynamics , 1996 .

[13]  Marika M. Holland,et al.  Inherent sea ice predictability in the rapidly changing Arctic environment of the Community Climate System Model, version 3 , 2011 .

[14]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis , 2013 .

[15]  T. Vinje.  Anomalies and Trends of Sea-Ice Extent and Atmospheric Circulation in the Nordic Seas during the Period 1864–1998 , 2001 .

[16]  S. Levitus.  Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean , 1982 .

[17]  J. Wallace,et al.  Response of Sea Ice to the Arctic Oscillation , 2002 .

[18]  M. Latif,et al.  Estimating the decadal predictability of a coupled AOGCM , 2004 .

[19]  Jinlun Zhang,et al.  Ensemble 1‐Year predictions of Arctic sea ice for the spring and summer of 2008 , 2008 .

[20]  Sylvain Bouillon,et al.  Simulating the mass balance and salinity of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. 1. Model description and validation , 2009 .

[21]  R. Gerdes,et al.  Comparison of Arctic sea ice thickness variability in IPCC Climate of the 20th Century experiments and in ocean–sea ice hindcasts , 2007 .

[22]  R. Colony,et al.  The thickness distribution of sea ice , 1975 .

[23]  J. Jacobs,et al.  WMO Sea-Ice Nomenclature , 1972 .

[24]  E. Hunke,et al.  Age characteristics in a multidecadal Arctic sea ice simulation , 2009 .

[25]  R. E. Moritz,et al.  Low-Frequency Variability in the Arctic Atmosphere, Sea Ice, and Upper-Ocean Climate System , 1996 .

[26]  Gary A. Maykut,et al.  Large‐scale heat exchange and ice production in the central Arctic , 1982 .

[27]  Hugues Goosse,et al.  Increased variability of the Arctic summer ice extent in a warmer climate , 2009 .

[28]  V. Petoukhov,et al.  A link between reduced Barents-Kara sea ice and cold winter extremes over northern continents , 2010 .

[29]  M. Maqueda,et al.  Sensitivity of a global sea ice model to the treatment of ice thermodynamics and dynamics , 1997 .

[30]  Spatial and temporal variability of Arctic ice thickness , 1995 .

[31]  Michael Steele,et al.  Seasonal predictions of ice extent in the Arctic Ocean , 2008 .

[32]  Frank Kauker,et al.  Adjoint analysis of the 2007 all time Arctic sea‐ice minimum , 2009 .

[33]  Marika M. Holland,et al.  Simulating the ice‐thickness distribution in a coupled climate model , 2001 .

[34]  W. Lipscomb.  Remapping the thickness distribution in sea ice models , 2001 .

[35]  A. Sterl,et al.  The ERA‐40 re‐analysis , 2005 .

[36]  Klaus Hasselmann,et al.  Stochastic Dynamic Analysis of Polar Sea Ice Variability , 1980 .

[37]  M. Holland,et al.  The Role of Natural Versus Forced Change in Future Rapid Summer Arctic Ice Loss , 2013 .

[38]  P. Delecluse,et al.  OPA 8.1 Ocean General Circulation Model reference manual , 1998 .

[39]  George L. Mellor,et al.  Modeling the seasonal variability of a coupled Arctic ice‐ocean system , 1992 .