Global warming and Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent

Science

Volumn 286, Issue 5446, 1999, Pages 1934-1937

  Vinnikov, Konstantin Y ^a   Robock, Alan ^b   Stouffer, Ronald J ^c   Walsh, John E ^d   Parkinson, Claire L ^e   Cavalieri, Donald J ^e   Mitchell, John F B ^f   Garrett, Donald ^g   Zakharov, Victor F ^h  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

^b RUTGERS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c NOAA EARTH SYSTEM RESEARCH LABORATORY   (United States)

^d UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

^e NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER   (United States)

^f MET OFFICE   (United Kingdom)

^g CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER   (United States)

^h ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE   (Russian Federation)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ICE; SEA WATER;

GLOBAL WARMING; ICE COVER; NORTHERN HEMISPHERE; SEA ICE;

ARTICLE; ATMOSPHERE; GLOBAL CLIMATE; GREENHOUSE EFFECT; OCEANIC REGIONS; PRIORITY JOURNAL; THERMODYNAMICS; WARMING;

EID: 0033521074     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5446.1934     Document Type: Article

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24. Battisti et al. [D. S. Battisti, C. M. Bitz, R. E. Moritz, J. Clim. 10, 1909 (1997)], using a more complex sea ice model, with explicit snow cover and multiple ice layers, daim that the sea ice model used here underestimates the low-frequency variability of the sea ice thickness. Their model produces a longer time scale of response, resulting in larger low-frequency variability of sea ice, and they daim that it is more realistic. Furthermore, they postulate that the sea ice response to changes in the radiative forcing would be too fast with our simple model. But they admit that observations are not good enough to distinguish between the high variability of ice they calculate and the lower GFDL variability, and their model is only of ice thickness, not extent, and ignores any spatial heterogeneity. Our findings in this report, which compare the model results to the observations, contradict their conclusions, at least for sea ice extent in the NH. The modeled variability of the sea ice extent agrees quite well with the detrended observations, and the response to increasing greenhouse gases also seems realistic.
25. We thank S. Manabe, J. Mahlman, I. Held, M. Winton, K. W. Dixon, and T. Broccoli for very useful discussions on the work and suggestions on the manuscript; W. Chapman, C. Ropelewski, E. Bjorgo, and O. M. Johannessen for supplying us with observed sea ice extent data; and C. Coughlan for assistance in work with the Hadley Centre model output. This work was supported by joint NOAA and U.S. Department of Energy grants NA66GPO438 and NA96GPO117 and by the NASA Polar Programs Office.