The changing seasonal climate in the Arctic

Ongoing and projected greenhouse warming clearly manifests itself in the Arctic regions, which warm faster than any other part of the world. One of the key features of amplified Arctic warming concerns Arctic winter warming (AWW), which exceeds summer warming by at least a factor of 4. Here we use o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2013-03, Vol.3 (1), p.1556, Article 1556
Main Authors: Bintanja, R., van der Linden, E. C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/106/125
704/106/35/823
704/106/694/1108
704/106/694/2786
Albedo
Arctic Regions
Arctic zone
Climate
Climate Change
Climate models
Ecosystem
Feedback
Greenhouse effect
Humanities and Social Sciences
I.R. radiation
Ice Cover
Infrared radiation
multidisciplinary
Oceans and Seas
Science
Sea ice
Seasons
Summer
Temperature
Temperature effects
Winter
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Summary:Ongoing and projected greenhouse warming clearly manifests itself in the Arctic regions, which warm faster than any other part of the world. One of the key features of amplified Arctic warming concerns Arctic winter warming (AWW), which exceeds summer warming by at least a factor of 4. Here we use observation-driven reanalyses and state-of-the-art climate models in a variety of standardised climate change simulations to show that AWW is strongly linked to winter sea ice retreat through the associated release of surplus ocean heat gained in summer through the ice-albedo feedback (~25%) and to infrared radiation feedbacks (~75%). Arctic summer warming is surprisingly modest, even after summer sea ice has completely disappeared. Quantifying the seasonally varying changes in Arctic temperature and sea ice and the associated feedbacks helps to more accurately quantify the likelihood of Arctic's climate changes and to assess their impact on local ecosystems and socio-economic activities.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep01556