An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean

Arctic sea ice plays a central role in the Earth’s climate. Changes in the sea ice on seasonal-to-interannual timescales impact ecosystems, populations and a growing number of stakeholders. A prerequisite for achieving better sea ice predictions is a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: Cruz-García, Rubén; Guemas, Virginie; Chevallier, Matthieu; Massonnet, François
Format: Article
Publication date:2019
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repository:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/166401
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/166401
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4592-6
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Sea ice--Arctic regions
Sea ice
Regional
Arctic
Predictability
Clima--Observacions
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies
_version_ 1878734408528166912
author Cruz-García, Rubén
author2 Guemas, Virginie
Chevallier, Matthieu
Massonnet, François
author2_role author
author
author
author_browse Chevallier, Matthieu
Cruz-García, Rubén
Guemas, Virginie
Massonnet, François
author_facet Cruz-García, Rubén
Guemas, Virginie
Chevallier, Matthieu
Massonnet, François
author_role author
collection UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
description Arctic sea ice plays a central role in the Earth’s climate. Changes in the sea ice on seasonal-to-interannual timescales impact ecosystems, populations and a growing number of stakeholders. A prerequisite for achieving better sea ice predictions is a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of sea ice predictability. Previous studies have shown that sea ice predictability depends on the predictand (area, extent, volume), region, and the initial and target dates. Here we investigate seasonal-to-interannual sea ice predictability in so-called “perfect-model” 3-year-long experiments run with six global climate models initialized in early July. Consistent with previous studies, robust mechanisms for reemergence are highlighted, i.e. increases in the autocorrelation of sea ice properties after an initial loss. Similar winter sea ice extent reemergence is found for HadGEM1.2, GFDL-CM3 and E6F, while a long sea ice volume persistence is confirmed for all models. The comparable predictability characteristics shown by some of the peripheral regions of the Atlantic side illustrate that robust similarities can be found even if models have distinct sea ice states. The analysis of the regional sea ice predictability in EC-Earth2.3 demonstrates that Arctic basins can be classified according to three distinct regimes. The central Arctic drives most of the pan-Arctic sea ice volume persistence. In peripheral seas, we find predictability for the sea ice area in winter but low predictability throughout the rest of the year, due to the particularly unpredictable sea ice edge location. The Labrador Sea stands out among the considered regions, with sea ice predictability extending up to 1.5 years if the oceanic conditions upstream are known.
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
format article
id ES_697490c19095e827a24a970e1936aeac
institution Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
instname_str Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
language eng
network_acronym_str ES
network_name_str España
oai_identifier_str oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/166401
publishDate 2019
publishDateSort 2019
publisher Springer
publisherStr Springer
reponame_str UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
spelling An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean Cruz-García, Rubén Guemas, Virginie Chevallier, Matthieu Massonnet, François Sea ice--Arctic regions Sea ice Regional Arctic Predictability Clima--Observacions Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies Arctic sea ice plays a central role in the Earth’s climate. Changes in the sea ice on seasonal-to-interannual timescales impact ecosystems, populations and a growing number of stakeholders. A prerequisite for achieving better sea ice predictions is a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of sea ice predictability. Previous studies have shown that sea ice predictability depends on the predictand (area, extent, volume), region, and the initial and target dates. Here we investigate seasonal-to-interannual sea ice predictability in so-called “perfect-model” 3-year-long experiments run with six global climate models initialized in early July. Consistent with previous studies, robust mechanisms for reemergence are highlighted, i.e. increases in the autocorrelation of sea ice properties after an initial loss. Similar winter sea ice extent reemergence is found for HadGEM1.2, GFDL-CM3 and E6F, while a long sea ice volume persistence is confirmed for all models. The comparable predictability characteristics shown by some of the peripheral regions of the Atlantic side illustrate that robust similarities can be found even if models have distinct sea ice states. The analysis of the regional sea ice predictability in EC-Earth2.3 demonstrates that Arctic basins can be classified according to three distinct regimes. The central Arctic drives most of the pan-Arctic sea ice volume persistence. In peripheral seas, we find predictability for the sea ice area in winter but low predictability throughout the rest of the year, due to the particularly unpredictable sea ice edge location. The Labrador Sea stands out among the considered regions, with sea ice predictability extending up to 1.5 years if the oceanic conditions upstream are known. We thank Jonathan Day and Steffen Tietsche for providing the data for the ocean heat transport into the Arctic; Nicolau Manubens, Javier Vegas-Regidor and Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière for the technical support; Pablo Ortega for useful comments on the pre-submission draft. We thank Javier García-Serrano for useful discussions regarding this study and Alasdair Hunter for the revision of the English. We give thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments that improved the manuscript. The R-package s2dverification was used for processing the data and calculating different scores (Manubens et al. 2018). We acknowledge the Ariane tool and its creators (http://stockage.univ-brest.fr/~grima/Ariane/). We also thank the projects APPLICATE (H2020 GA 727862), INTAROS (H2020 GA 727890), the programme Copernicus and the fellowships Ramón y Cajal (MINECO) and Formación de Profesorado Universitario (FPU; Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte) for funding this work. Peer Reviewed Springer https://hdl.handle.net/2117/166401 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4592-6
spellingShingle An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean
Cruz-García, Rubén
Sea ice--Arctic regions
Sea ice
Regional
Arctic
Predictability
Clima--Observacions
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies
title An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean
title_full An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean
title_fullStr An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean
title_full_unstemmed An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean
title_short An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean
title_sort An assessment of regional sea ice predictability in the Arctic ocean
topic Sea ice--Arctic regions
Sea ice
Regional
Arctic
Predictability
Clima--Observacions
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies
topic_facet Sea ice--Arctic regions
Sea ice
Regional
Arctic
Predictability
Clima--Observacions
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies
url https://hdl.handle.net/2117/166401
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4592-6