Regime shift in Arctic Ocean sea ice thickness.

Manifestations of climate change are often shown as gradual changes in physical or biogeochemical properties. Components of the climate system, however, can show stepwise shifts from one regime to another, as a nonlinear response of the system to a changing forcing. Here we show that the Arctic sea ice regime shifted in 2007 from thicker and deformed to thinner and more uniform ice cover.

Unprecedented decline of Arctic sea ice outflow in 2018.

Fram Strait is the major gateway connecting the Arctic Ocean and North Atlantic Ocean, where nearly 90% of the sea ice export from the Arctic Ocean takes place. The exported sea ice is a large source of freshwater to the Nordic Seas and Subpolar North Atlantic, thereby preconditioning European climate and deep water formation in the North Atlantic Ocean. Here we show that in 2018, the ice export through Fram Strait showed an unprecedented decline since the early 1990s.