中国CMIP5模式对未来北极海冰的模拟偏差

本文对中国参加CMIP5的6个气候模式对未来北极海冰的模拟情况进行了评估。通过与1979-2005年海冰的观测值以及2050年代的多模式集合平均值对比发现,中国的气候模式对海冰范围的模拟结果与CMIP5模式的平均水平存在一定差距,具体表现为：BNU-ESM和FGOALS-s2对当前海冰范围估计很好,但对温度敏感性略偏高;FIO-ESM对当前海冰范围估计很好,但由于海冰对温度的敏感性偏低,导致其模拟的未来海冰在各种RCP情景中都融化缓慢;FGOALS-g2（BCC-CSM1-1和BCC-CSM1-1-m）对当前海冰范围的模拟存在显著偏多（显著偏少）的问题,这导致其对未来海冰融化的估计也持续偏多（偏少）。中国模式对北极海冰的模拟偏差导致它们对极区地表大气温度和湿度的模拟出现偏差,并且这些极区气象要素的偏差会进一步通过动力过程传导到对秋、冬季西风带、极涡的模拟中去。研究表明：从对海冰本身的模拟以及海冰偏差带来的气候影响这两个角度看,BNU-ESM在中国模式中水平较高,但总体上中国6个气候模式在海冰分量的模拟上仍与世界平均水平存在差距,这需要中国各模式中心的持续改进。     

Polar amplification of climate change in coupled models

The Northern Hemisphere polar amplification of climate change is documented in models taking part in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project and in the new version of the Community Climate System Model. In particular, the magnitude, spatial distribution, and seasonality of the surface warming in the Arctic is examined and compared among the models. The range of simulated polar warming in the Arctic is from 1.5 to 4.5 times the global mean warming. While ice-albedo feedback is likely to account for much of the polar amplification, the strength of the feedback depends on numerous physical processes and parametrizations which differ considerably among the models. Nonetheless, the mean sea-ice state in the control (or present) climate is found to influence both the magnitude and spatial distribution of the high-latitude warming in the models. In particular, the latitude of the maximum warming is correlated inversely and significantly with sea-ice extent in the control climate. Additionally, models with relatively thin Arctic ice cover in the control climate tend to have higher polar amplification. An intercomparison of model results also shows that increases in poleward ocean heat transport at high latitudes and increases in polar cloud cover are significantly correlated to amplified Arctic warming. This suggests that these changes in the climate state may modify polar amplification. No significant correlation is found between polar amplification and the control climate continental ice and snow cover.     

Sensitivity of open-water ice growth and ice concentration evolution in a coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice model

A coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice model is applied to investigate to what degree the area-thickness distribution of new ice formed in open water affects the ice and ocean properties. Two sensitivity experiments are performed which modify the horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratio of open-water ice growth. The resulting changes in the Arctic sea-ice concentration strongly affect the surface albedo, the ocean heat release to the atmosphere, and the sea-ice production. The changes are further amplified through a positive feedback mechanism among the Arctic sea ice, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and the surface air temperature in the Arctic, as the Fram Strait sea ice import influences the freshwater budget in the North Atlantic Ocean. Anomalies in sea-ice transport lead to changes in sea surface properties of the North Atlantic and the strength of AMOC. For the Southern Ocean, the most pronounced change is a warming along the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), owing to the interhemispheric bipolar seasaw linked to AMOC weakening. Another insight of this study lies on the improvement of our climate model. The ocean component FESOM is a newly developed ocean-sea ice model with an unstructured mesh and multi-resolution. We find that the subpolar sea-ice boundary in the Northern Hemisphere can be improved by tuning the process of open-water ice growth, which strongly influences the sea ice concentration in the marginal ice zone, the North Atlantic circulation, salinity and Arctic sea ice volume. Since the distribution of new ice on open water relies on many uncertain parameters and the knowledge of the detailed processes is currently too crude, it is a challenge to implement the processes realistically into models. Based on our sensitivity experiments, we conclude a pronounced uncertainty related to open-water sea ice growth which could significantly affect the climate system sensitivity.     

Climate Change Scenarios for the Hudson Bay Region: An Intermodel Comparison

General circulation models (GCMs) are unanimous in projecting warmer temperatures in an enhanced CO₂ atmosphere, with amplification of this warming in higher latitudes. The Hudson Bay region, which is located in the Arctic and subarctic regions of Canada, should therefore be strongly influenced by global warming. In this study, we compare the response of Hudson Bay to a transient warming scenario provided by six-coupled atmosphere-ocean models. Our analysis focuses on surface temperature, precipitation, sea-ice coverage, and permafrost distribution. The results show that warming is expected to peak in winter over the ocean, because of a northward retreat of the sea-ice cover. Also, a secondary warming peak is observed in summer over land in the Canadian and Australian-coupled GCMs, which is associated with both a reduction in soil moisture conditions and changes in permafrost distribution. In addition, a relationship is identified between the retreat of the sea-ice cover and an enhancement of precipitation over both land and oceanic surfaces. The response of the sea-ice cover and permafrost layer to global warming varies considerably among models and thus large differences are observed in the projected regional increase in temperature and precipitation. In view of the important feedbacks that a retreat of the sea-ice cover and the distribution of permafrost are likely to play in the doubled and tripled CO₂ climates of Hudson Bay, a good representation of these two parameters is necessary to provide realistic climate change scenarios. The use of higher resolution regional climate model is recommended to develop scenarios of climate change for the Hudson Bay region.     

Linking the northern hemisphere sea-ice reduction trend and the quasi-decadal arctic sea-ice oscillation

The nature of the reduction trend and quasi-decadal oscillation in Northern Hemisphere sea-ice extent is investigated. The trend and oscillation that seem to be two separate phenomena have been found in data. This study examines a hypothesis that the Arctic sea-ice reduction trend in the last three decades amplified the quasi-decadal Arctic sea-ice oscillation (ASIO) due to a positive ice/ocean-albedo feedback, based on data analysis and a conceptual model proposed by Ikeda et al. The theoretical, conceptual model predicts that the quasi-decadal oscillation is amplified by the thinning sea-ice, leading to the ASIO, which is driven by the strong positive feedback between the atmosphere and ice-ocean systems. Such oscillation is predicted to be out-of-phase between the Arctic Basin and the Nordic Seas with a phase difference of 3/4, with the Nordic Seas leading the Arctic. The wavelet analysis of the sea ice data reveals that the quasi-decadal ASIO occurred actively since the 1970s following the trend starting in the 1960s (i.e., as sea-ice became thinner and thinner), as the atmosphere experienced quasi-decadal oscillations during the last century. The wavelet analysis also confirms the prediction of such out-of-phase feature between these two basins, which varied from 0.62 in 1960 to 0.25 in 1995. Furthermore, a coupled ice-ocean general circulation model (GCM) was used to simulate two scenarios, one without the greenhouse gas warming and the other having realistic atmospheric forcing along with the warming that leads to sea-ice reduction trend. The quasi-decadal ASIO is excited in the latter case compared to the no-warming case. The wavelet analyses of the simulated ice volume were also conducted to derive decadal ASIO and similar phase relationship between the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas. An independent data source was used to confirm such decadal oscillation in the upper layer (or freshwater) thickness, which is consistent with the model simulation. A modified feedback loop for the sea-ice trend and ASIO was proposed based on the previous one by Mysak and Venegas and the ice/albedo and cloud/albedo feedabcks, which are responsible for the sea ice reduction trend.     

Arctic sea ice and Eurasian climate: A review

The Arctic plays a fundamental role in the climate system and has shown significant climate change in recent decades,including the Arctic warming and decline of Arctic sea-ice extent and thickness. In contrast to the Arctic warming and reduction of Arctic sea ice, Europe, East Asia and North America have experienced anomalously cold conditions, with record snowfall during recent years. In this paper, we review current understanding of the sea-ice impacts on the Eurasian climate.Paleo, observational and modelling studies are covered to summarize several major themes, including: the variability of Arctic sea ice and its controls; the likely causes and apparent impacts of the Arctic sea-ice decline during the satellite era,as well as past and projected future impacts and trends; the links and feedback mechanisms between the Arctic sea ice and the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation, the recent Eurasian cooling, winter atmospheric circulation, summer precipitation in East Asia, spring snowfall over Eurasia, East Asian winter monsoon, and midlatitude extreme weather; and the remote climate response(e.g., atmospheric circulation, air temperature) to changes in Arctic sea ice. We conclude with a brief summary and suggestions for future research.     

Simulation of sea ice in FGOALS-g2: Climatology and late 20th century changes

Sea ice is an important component in the Earth’s climate system. Coupled climate system models are indispensable tools for the study of sea ice, its internal processes, interaction with other components, and projection of future changes. This paper evaluates the simulation of sea ice by the Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model Grid-point Version 2 (FGOALS-g2), in the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5), with a focus on historical experiments and late 20th century simulation. Through analysis, we find that FGOALS-g2 produces reasonable Arctic and Antarctic sea ice climatology and variability. Sea ice spatial distribution and seasonal change characteristics are well captured. The decrease of Arctic sea ice extent in the late 20th century is reproduced in simulations, although the decrease trend is lower compared with observations. Simulated Antarctic sea ice shows a reasonable distribution and seasonal cycle with high accordance to the amplitude of winter-summer changes. Large improvement is achieved as compared with FGOALS-g1.0 in CMIP3. Diagnosis of atmospheric and oceanic forcing on sea ice reveals several shortcomings and major aspects to improve upon in the future: (1) ocean model improvements to remove the artificial island at the North Pole; (2) higher resolution of the atmosphere model for better simulation of important features such as, among others, the Icelandic Low and westerly wind over the Southern Ocean; and (3) ocean model improvements to accurately receive freshwater input from land, and higher resolution for resolving major water channels in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.     

Past and future polar amplification of climate change: climate model intercomparisons and ice-core constraints

Climate model simulations available from the PMIP1, PMIP2 and CMIP (IPCC-AR4) intercomparison projects for past and future climate change simulations are examined in terms of polar temperature changes in comparison to global temperature changes and with respect to pre-industrial reference simulations. For the mid-Holocene (MH, 6,000 years ago), the models are forced by changes in the Earth’s orbital parameters. The MH PMIP1 atmosphere-only simulations conducted with sea surface temperatures fixed to modern conditions show no MH consistent response for the poles, whereas the new PMIP2 coupled atmosphere–ocean climate models systematically simulate a significant MH warming both for Greenland (but smaller than ice-core based estimates) and Antarctica (consistent with the range of ice-core based range). In both PMIP1 and PMIP2, the MH annual mean changes in global temperature are negligible, consistent with the MH orbital forcing. The simulated last glacial maximum (LGM, 21,000 years ago) to pre-industrial change in global mean temperature ranges between 3 and 7°C in PMIP1 and PMIP2 model runs, similar to the range of temperature change expected from a quadrupling of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations in the CMIP simulations. Both LGM and future climate simulations are associated with a polar amplification of climate change. The range of glacial polar amplification in Greenland is strongly dependent on the ice sheet elevation changes prescribed to the climate models. All PMIP2 simulations systematically underestimate the reconstructed glacial–interglacial Greenland temperature change, while some of the simulations do capture the reconstructed glacial–interglacial Antarctic temperature change. Uncertainties in the prescribed central ice cap elevation cannot account for the temperature change underestimation by climate models. The variety of climate model sensitivities enables the exploration of the relative changes in polar temperature with respect to changes in global temperatures. Simulated changes of polar temperatures are strongly related to changes in simulated global temperatures for both future and LGM climates, confirming that ice-core-based reconstructions provide quantitative insights on global climate changes. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Impact of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet interactions on climate sensitivity

We use the Earth system model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM to show the effect of coupling interactive ice sheets on the climate sensitivity of the model on a millennial time scale. We compare the response to a 2×CO₂ warming scenario between fully coupled model versions including interactive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet models and model versions with fixed ice sheets. For this purpose an ensemble of different parameter sets have been defined for LOVECLIM, covering a wide range of the model??s sensitivity to greenhouse warming, while still simulating the present-day climate and the climate evolution over the last millennium within observational uncertainties. Additional freshwater fluxes from the melting ice sheets have a mitigating effect on the model??s temperature response, leading to generally lower climate sensitivities of the fully coupled model versions. The mitigation is effectuated by changes in heat exchange within the ocean and at the sea?Cair interface, driven by freshening of the surface ocean and amplified by sea?Cice-related feedbacks. The strength of the effect depends on the response of the ice sheets to the warming and on the model??s climate sensitivity itself. The effect is relatively strong in model versions with higher climate sensitivity due to the relatively large polar amplification of LOVECLIM. With the ensemble approach in this study we cover a wide range of possible model responses.     

Heat budget of the upper Arctic Ocean under a warming climate

The heat budget of the upper Arctic Ocean is examined in an ensemble of coupled climate models under idealised increasing CO₂ scenarios. All of the experiments show a strong amplification of surface air temperatures but a smaller increase in sea surface temperature than the rest of the world as heat is lost to the atmosphere as the sea-ice cover is reduced. We carry out a heat budget analysis of the Arctic Ocean in an ensemble of model runs to understand the changes that occur as the Arctic becomes ice free in summer. We find that as sea-ice retreats heat is lost from the ocean surface to the atmosphere contributing to the amplification of Arctic surface temperatures. Furthermore, heat is mixed upwards into the mixed layer as a result of increased upper ocean mixing and there is increased advection of heat into the Arctic as the ice edge retreats. Heat lost from the upper Arctic Ocean to the atmosphere is therefore replenished by mixing of warmer water from below and by increased advection of warm water from lower latitudes. The ocean is therefore able to contribute more to Arctic amplification.     

On modelling the seasonal thermodynamic cycle of sea ice in studies of climatic change

Recent work in modelling climatic changes due to increased atmospheric CO₂ has shown the maximum change to occur in the polar regions as a result of seasonal reductions in sea ice coverage. Typically, sea ice thermodynamics is modelled in a very simple way, whereby the storage of both sensible and latent heat within the ice is ignored, and the effects of snow cover on conductivity and on surface albedo and of oceanic heat flux on bottom ablation may also be neglected. This paper considers whether omission of these processes is justified within the context of quantitatively determining regional climatic changes. A related question, whether omission of ice dynamics can be justified, is not considered.Relatively complete one-dimensional models of sea-ice thermodynamics have previously been developed and tested for a variety of environmental conditions by Maykut and Untersteiner (1969, 1971) and by Semtner (1976). A simpler model which neglects the storage of sensible and latent heat is described in the Appendix to Semtner (1976). In that model, the errors in annual-mean ice thickness which would arise from neglect of heat storage can be compensated by increases in albedo and in conductivity. Here we examine the seasonal cycle of ice thickness predicted by such a model and find significant errors in phase (one month lead) and in amplitude (50% overestimate). The amplitude errors are enhanced as snowfall and oceanic heat flux diminish (or are neglected). This suggests that substantial errors may occur in climate simulations which use very simple formulations of sea ice thermodynamics, whereby early and excessive melting exaggerates the seasonal disappearance of sea ice.To illustrate the above point, two models are configured to examine the local response of Arctic sea ice to a quadrupling of atmospheric CO₂. The first model neglects a number of physical processes and mimics the behavior of sea ice found in Manabe and Stouffer (1980), both for present and enhanced levels of CO₂. The more complete second model gives a better simulation of Arctic ice for the present level of CO₂ and shows a reduced response to CO₂ quadrupling relative to that in Manabe and Stouffer (1980). In particular, the change in surface temperature is cut by a factor of two. In view of this result, a more complete treatment of sea ice thermodynamics would seem warranted in further studies of climate change. Only a minor computational increase is required.A portion of this study is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy as a part of its Carbon Dioxide Research Program.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.     

Identifying uncertainties in Arctic climate change projections

Wide ranging climate changes are expected in the Arctic by the end of the 21st century, but projections of the size of these changes vary widely across current global climate models. This variation represents a large source of uncertainty in our understanding of the evolution of Arctic climate. Here we systematically quantify and assess the model uncertainty in Arctic climate changes in two CO₂ doubling experiments: a multimodel ensemble (CMIP3) and an ensemble constructed using a single model (HadCM3) with multiple parameter perturbations (THC-QUMP). These two ensembles allow us to assess the contribution that both structural and parameter variations across models make to the total uncertainty and to begin to attribute sources of uncertainty in projected changes. We find that parameter uncertainty is an major source of uncertainty in certain aspects of Arctic climate. But also that uncertainties in the mean climate state in the 20th century, most notably in the northward Atlantic ocean heat transport and Arctic sea ice volume, are a significant source of uncertainty for projections of future Arctic change. We suggest that better observational constraints on these quantities will lead to significant improvements in the precision of projections of future Arctic climate change.     

A sensitivity experiment for the removal of Arctic sea ice with the French spectral general circulation model

Sea ice has a major influence on climate in high latitudes. In this paper we analyzed the impact of removal of Arctic sea-ice cover on the climate simulated by a T42 20-level version of the French spectral model Emeraude. The control experiment was the second winter of an annual cycle simulation of the present climate. In the perturbed simulation the Arctic sea-ice cover was replaced by open ocean maintained at the freezing temperature of sea water. The zonal mean patterns of the model response were found to be in good agreement with earlier simulations of Fletcher et al. and Warshaw and Rapp. The atmospheric warming, caused by the increase of upward fluxes of sensible and latent heat and of longwave radiation from the ice-free ocean surface, is largely limited to the high latitudes poleward of 70° N and the lower half of the troposphere and leads to a surface pressure decrease and a precipitation increase over this area. We also analyze the geographical distribution of the response and the mechanisms that can explain the simulated cooling over Eurasia in relation to the energy budget at the surface. Finally, we discuss the reduction of cloud cover over the ice-free Arctic, which was an unexpected result of our simulation, and conclude that further studies are necessary to resolve the question of cumulus convection and cloud process parameterization in high latitudes.This paper was presented at the International Conference on Modelling of Global Climate Change and Variability, held in Hamburg 11–15 September 1989 under the auspices of the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. Guest Editor for these papers is Dr. L. Dümenil     

Late Pleistocene variations in Antarctic sea ice II: effect of interhemispheric deep-ocean heat exchange

Variations in production rates of warm North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) have been proposed as a mechanism for linking climate fluctuations in the northern and southern hemispheres during the Pleistocene. We have tested this hypothesis by examining the sensitivity of a thermodynamic/dynamic model for Antarctic sea ice to changes in vertical ocean heat flux and comparing the simulations with modified CLIMAP sea-ice maps for 18 000 B.P. Results suggest that changes in NADW production rates, and the consequent changes in the vertical ocean heat flux in the Antarctic, can only account for about 20%–30% of the overall variance in Antarctic sea-ice extent. This conclusion has been validated against an independent geological data set involving a time series of sea-surface temperatures from the subantarctic. The latter comparison suggests that, although the overall influence of NADW is relatively minor, the linkage may be much more significant at the 41 000-year obliquity period. Despite some limitations in the models and geological data, we conclude that NADW variations may have played only a modest role in causing late Pleistocene climate change in the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere. Our conclusion is consistent with calculations by Manabe and Broccoli (1985) suggesting that atmospheric CO₂ changes may be more important for linking the two hemispheres.     

Analysis of the projected regional sea-ice changes in the Southern Ocean during the twenty-first century

Using the set of simulations performed with atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4), the projected regional distribution of sea ice for the twenty-first century has been investigated. Averaged over all those model simulations, the current climate is reasonably well reproduced. However, this averaging procedure hides the errors from individual models. Over the twentieth century, the multimodel average simulates a larger sea-ice concentration decrease around the Antarctic Peninsula compared to other regions, which is in qualitative agreement with observations. This is likely related to the positive trend in the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) index over the twentieth century, in both observations and in the multimodel average. Despite the simulated positive future trend in SAM, such a regional feature around the Antarctic Peninsula is absent in the projected sea-ice change for the end of the twenty-first century. The maximum decrease is indeed located over the central Weddell Sea and the Amundsen–Bellingshausen Seas. In most models, changes in the oceanic currents could play a role in the regional distribution of the sea ice, especially in the Ross Sea, where stronger southward currents could be responsible for a smaller sea-ice decrease during the twenty-first century. Finally, changes in the mixed layer depth can be found in some models, inducing locally strong changes in the sea-ice concentration.

Towards quantifying uncertainty in transient climate change

Ensembles of coupled atmosphere–ocean global circulation model simulations are required to make probabilistic predictions of future climate change. “Perturbed physics” ensembles provide a new approach in which modelling uncertainties are sampled systematically by perturbing uncertain parameters. The aim is to provide a basis for probabilistic predictions in which the impact of prior assumptions and observational constraints can be clearly distinguished. Here we report on the first perturbed physics coupled atmosphere–ocean model ensemble in which poorly constrained atmosphere, land and sea-ice component parameters are varied in the third version of the Hadley Centre model (the variation of ocean parameters will be the subject of future study). Flux adjustments are employed, both to reduce regional sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity biases and also to admit the use of combinations of model parameter values which give non-zero values for the global radiation balance. This improves the extent to which the ensemble provides a credible basis for the quantification of uncertainties in climate change, especially at a regional level. However, this particular implementation of flux-adjustments leads to a weakening of the Atlantic overturning circulation, resulting in the development of biases in SST and sea ice in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Nevertheless, model versions are produced which are of similar quality to the unperturbed and un-flux-adjusted version. The ensemble is used to simulate pre-industrial conditions and a simple scenario of a 1% per year compounded increase in CO₂. The range of transient climate response (the 20 year averaged global warming at the time of CO₂ doubling) is 1.5–2.6°C, similar to that found in multi-model studies. Measures of global and large scale climate change from the coupled models show simple relationships with associated measures computed from atmosphere-mixed-layer-ocean climate change experiments, suggesting that recent advances in computing the probability density function of climate change under equilibrium conditions using the perturbed physics approach may be extended to the transient case.     

The impact of dynamic sea-ice on the climatology and climate sensitivity of a GCM: a study of past, present, and future climates

 We assess two parametrisations of sea-ice in a coupled atmosphere–mixed layer ocean–sea-ice model. One parametrisation represents the thermodynamic properties of sea-ice formation alone (THERM), while the other also includes advection of the ice (DYN). The inclusion of some sea-ice dynamics improves the model's simulation of the present day sea-ice cover when compared to observations. Two climate change scenarios are used to investigate the effect of these different parametrisations on the model's climate sensitivity. The scenarios are the equilibrium response to a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ and the response to imposed glacial boundary conditions. DYN produces a smaller temperature response to a doubling of CO₂ than THERM. The temperature response of THERM is more similar to DYN in the glacial case than in the 2×CO₂ case which implies that the climate sensitivity of THERM and DYN varies with the nature of the forcing. The different responses can largely be explained by the different distribution of Southern Hemisphere sea-ice cover in the control simulations, with the inclusion of ice dynamics playing an important part in producing the differences. This emphasises the importance of realistically simulating the reference climatic state when attempting to simulate a climate change to a prescribed forcing. The simulated glacial sea-ice cover is consistent with the limited palaeodata in both THERM and DYN, but DYN simulates a more realistic present day sea-ice cover. We conclude that the inclusion of simple ice dynamics in our model increases our confidence in the simulation of the anomaly climate. Received: 24 May 2000 / Accepted: 25 October 2000     

Deep-ocean heat uptake and equilibrium climate response

We integrate the coupled climate model ECHAM5/MPIOM to equilibrium under atmospheric CO₂ quadrupling. The equilibrium global-mean surface-temperature change is 10.8 K. The surface equilibrates within about 1,200 years, the deep ocean within 5,000 years. The impact of the deep ocean on the equilibrium surface-temperature response is illustrated by the difference between ECHAM5/MPIOM and ECHAM5 coupled with slab ocean model (ECHAM5/SOM). The equilibrium global-mean surface temperature response is 11.1 K in ECHAM5/SOM and is thus 0.3 K higher than in ECHAM5/MPIOM. ECHAM5/MPIOM shows less warming over the northern-hemisphere mid and high latitudes, but larger warming over the tropical ocean and especially over the southern-hemisphere high latitudes. ECHAM5/MPIOM shows similar polar amplification in both the Arctic and the Antarctic, in contrast to ECHAM5/SOM, which shows stronger polar amplification in the northern hemisphere. The southern polar warming in ECHAM5/MPIOM is greatly delayed by Antarctic deep-ocean warming due to convective and isopycnal mixing. The equilibrium ocean temperature warming under CO₂ quadrupling is around 8.0 K and is near-uniform with depth. The global-mean steric sea-level rise is 5.8 m in equilibrium; of this, 2.3 m are due to the deep-ocean warming after the surface temperature has almost equilibrated. This result suggests that the surface temperature change is a poor predictor for steric sea-level change in the long term. The effective climate response method described in Gregory et al. (2004) is evaluated with our simulation, which shows that their method to estimate the equilibrium climate response is accurate to within 10 %.     

Model Projections of East Asian Summer Climate under the ‘Free Arctic’ Scenario

This paper addresses the ‘ice-free Arctic’ issue under the future global warming scenario. Four coupled climate models used in the third phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) were selected to project summer climate conditions over East Asia once the Arctic becomes ice-free. The models project that an ice-free Arctic summer will begin in the 2060s under the SRESA1B (according to IPCC Special Reports on Emissions Scenarios) simulations. Our results show that the East Asian summer monsoons will tend to be stronger and that the water vapor transport to central northern China will be strengthened, leading to increased summer precipitation in central northern China. The models also project an intensified Antarctic Oscillation, a condition which favors increased precipitation in South China’s Yangtze River Valley. The overall precipitation in Northwest China is projected to increase under ice-free Arctic summer conditions.     

Evaluation of pan-Arctic melt-freeze onset in CMIP5 climate models and reanalyses using surface observations

The seasonal melt-freeze transitions are fundamental features of the Arctic climate system. The representation of the pan-Arctic melt and freeze onset (north of 60°N) is assessed in two reanalyses and eleven CMIP5 global circulation models (GCMs). The seasonal melt-freeze transitions are retrieved from surface air temperature (SAT) across the land and sea-ice domains and evaluated against surface observations. While monthly averages of SAT are reasonably well represented in models, large model-observation and model–model disparities of timing of melt and freeze onset are evident. The evaluation against surface observations reveals that the ERA-Interim reanalysis performs the best, closely followed by some of the climate models. GCMs and reanalyses capture the seasonal melt-freeze transitions better in the central Arctic than in the marginal seas and across the land areas. The GCMs project that during the 21st century, the summer length—the period between melt and freeze onset—will increase over land by about 1 month at all latitudes, and over sea ice by 1 and 3 months at low and high latitudes, respectively. This larger summer-length increase over sea ice at progressively higher latitudes is related to a retreat of summer sea ice during the 21st century, since open water freezes roughly 40 days later than ice-covered ocean. As a consequence, by the year 2100, the freeze onset is projected to be initiated within roughly 10 days across the whole Arctic Ocean, whereas this transition varies by about 80 days today.