Attribution of Arctic Sea Ice Decline from 1953 to 2012 to Influences from Natural, Greenhouse Gas, and Anthropogenic Aerosol Forcing

The paper presents results from a climate change detection and attribution study on the decline of Arctic sea ice extent in September for the 1953–2012 period. For this period three independently derived observational datasets and simulations from multiple climate models are available to attribute o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of climate 2018-10, Vol.31 (19), p.7771-7787
Main Authors: Mueller, B. L., Gillett, N. P., Monahan, A. H., Zwiers, F. W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerosols
Anthropogenic factors
Archives & records
Arctic sea ice
Change detection
Climate change
Climate models
Climate variability
Computer simulation
Cooling effects
Cryosphere
Detection
Fingerprinting
Fingerprints
Frameworks
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Human influences
Ice
Ice environments
Natural gas
Regression models
Science
Sea ice
Trends
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Summary:The paper presents results from a climate change detection and attribution study on the decline of Arctic sea ice extent in September for the 1953–2012 period. For this period three independently derived observational datasets and simulations from multiple climate models are available to attribute observed changes in the sea ice extent to known climate forcings. Here we direct our attention to the combined cooling effect from other anthropogenic forcing agents (mainly aerosols), which has potentially masked a fraction of greenhouse gas–induced Arctic sea ice decline. The presented detection and attribution framework consists of a regression model, namely, regularized optimal fingerprinting, where observations are regressed onto model-simulated climate response patterns (i.e., fingerprints). We show that fingerprints from greenhouse gas, natural, and other anthropogenic forcings are detected in the three observed records of Arctic sea ice extent. Beyond that, our findings indicate that for the 1953–2012 period roughly 23% of the greenhouse gas–induced negative sea ice trend has been offset by a weak positive sea ice trend attributable to other anthropogenic forcing. We show that our detection and attribution results remain robust in the presence of emerging non-stationary internal climate variability acting upon sea ice using a perfect model experiment and data from two large ensembles of climate simulations.
ISSN:0894-8755
1520-0442
DOI:10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0552.1