Identification

Title

Pacific sub-decadal sea surface temperature variations contributed to recent Antarctic Sea ice decline trend

Abstract

Total sea ice extent (SIE) across the Southern Ocean increased from 1979-2014, but declined rapidly after 2016. Significant sea ice decline has emerged since the peak of SIE in 2014, coincident with Pacific sub-decadal sea surface temperature (SST) trends resembling a strong La Niña-like cold condition and the negative phase of the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO). Previous studies suggest that the warm subsurface Southern Ocean was an important driver of the low sea ice in spring 2016 and the sustained low sea ice state since. Here we show that the observed atmospheric circulation changes near Antarctica during the period from June 2013-May 2023 are conducive to increasing surface temperature via warm advection from north and reducing Antarctic SIE, involving a deepening of the Amundsen Sea Low and anomalous high pressures over the Weddell Sea and West Pacific sectors. Through coupled pacemaker experiments, we demonstrate that Pacific sub-decadal SST trends have dominantly driven these atmospheric circulation changes through tropical–polar teleconnections and also induced significant Southern Ocean subsurface warming in the recent decade. The consequent decreasing SIE has enhanced the Southern Ocean subsurface warming effect and significantly contributed to the rapid Antarctic SIE decline.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d73f4v3r

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-04-10T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact