Modeling Arctic Ocean heat transport and warming episodes in the 20th century caused by the intruding Atlantic Water

This study investigates the Arctic Ocean warming episodes in the 20th century using both a high-resolution coupled global climate model and historical observations. The model, with no flux adjustment, reproduces well the Atlantic Water core temperature (AWCT) in the Arctic Ocean and shows that four largest decadalscale warming episodes occurred in the 1930's, 70s, 80s, and 90s, in agreement with the hydrographic observational data. The difference is that there was no pre-warming prior to the 1930s episode, while there were two pre-warming episodes in the 1970s and 80s prior to the 1990s, leading the 1990s into the largest and prolonged warming in the 20th century. Over the last century, the simulated heat transport via Fram Strait and the Barents Sea was estimated to be, on average, 31.32 TW and 14.82TW, respectively, while the Bering Strait also provides 15.94 TW heat into the western Arctic Ocean. Heat transport into the Arctic Ocean by the Atlantic Water via Fram Strait and the Barents Sea correlates significantly with AWCT ( C =0.75 ) at Olag. The modeled North Atlantic Oscillation ( NAO ) index has a significant correlation with the heat transport ( C = 0.37 ). The observed AWCT has a significant correlation with both the modeled AWCT (C =0.49) and the heat transport (C =0.41 ).However, the modeled NAO index does not significantly correlate with either the observed AWCT (C =0.03 ) or modeled AWCT (C = 0. 16) at a zero-lag, indicating that the Arctic climate system is far more complex than expected.