Arctic amplification is caused by sea-ice loss under increasing CO 2

Warming in the Arctic has been much faster than the rest of the world in both observations and model simulations, a phenomenon known as the Arctic amplification (AA) whose cause is still under debate. By analyzing data and model simulations, here we show that large AA occurs only from October to Apr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2019-12, Vol.10 (1), p.121
Main Authors: Dai, Aiguo, Luo, Dehai, Song, Mirong, Liu, Jiping
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arctic Regions
Carbon Dioxide - metabolism
Climate Change
Geography
Global Warming
Ice Cover
Seasons
Seawater - chemistry
Solar Energy
Temperature
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Summary:Warming in the Arctic has been much faster than the rest of the world in both observations and model simulations, a phenomenon known as the Arctic amplification (AA) whose cause is still under debate. By analyzing data and model simulations, here we show that large AA occurs only from October to April and only over areas with significant sea-ice loss. AA largely disappears when Arctic sea ice is fixed or melts away. Periods with larger AA are associated with larger sea-ice loss, and models with bigger sea-ice loss produce larger AA. Increased outgoing longwave radiation and heat fluxes from the newly opened waters cause AA, whereas all other processes can only indirectly contribute to AA by melting sea-ice. We conclude that sea-ice loss is necessary for the existence of large AA and that models need to simulate Arctic sea ice realistically in order to correctly simulate Arctic warming under increasing CO .
ISSN:2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-018-07954-9