AI Article Synopsis
- Arctic sea-ice extent has significantly decreased since satellite observations began in the late 1970s, with several drivers affecting this change but their contributions are not fully understood.
- Using the Liang-Kleeman information flow method on CMIP6 models from 1970 to 2060, the study investigates the impact of winter sea-ice volume, air temperature, and ocean heat transport on summer sea-ice extent.
- Findings reveal that air temperature is the primary driver of summer sea-ice changes, with winter sea-ice volume and Atlantic Ocean heat transport being secondary, while radiative influences are also important, particularly longwave radiation.
Article Abstract
Arctic sea-ice extent has strongly decreased since the beginning of satellite observations in the late 1970s. While several drivers are known to be implicated, their respective contribution is not fully understood. Here, we apply the Liang-Kleeman information flow method to five different large ensembles from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) over the 1970-2060 period to investigate the extent to which fluctuations in winter sea-ice volume, air temperature and ocean heat transport drive changes in subsequent summer Arctic sea-ice extent. This allows us to go beyond classical correlation analyses. Results show that air temperature is the most important controlling factor of summer sea-ice extent at interannual time scale, and that winter sea-ice volume and Atlantic Ocean heat transport play a secondary role. If we replace air temperature by net shortwave and downward longwave radiations, we find that the sum of influences from both radiations is almost similar to the air temperature influence, with the longwave radiation being dominant in driving changes in summer sea-ice extent. Finally, we find that the influence of air temperature is more prominent during periods of large sea-ice reduction and that this temperature influence has overall increased since 1970.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11484953 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76056-y | DOI Listing |
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