Identification

Title

Changing seasonal predictability of Arctic summer sea ice area in a warming climate

Abstract

We use a large ensemble set of simulations and initialized model forecasts to assess changes in the initial-value seasonal predictability of summer Arctic sea ice area from the late-twentieth to the mid-twenty-first century. Ice thickness is an important seasonal predictor of September ice area because early summer thickness anomalies affect how much melt out occurs. We find that the role of this predictor changes in a warming climate, leading to decadal changes in September ice area predictability. In January-initialized prediction experiments, initialization errors grow over time leading to forecast errors in ice thickness at the beginning of the melt season. The magnitude of this ice thickness forecast error growth for regions important to summer melt out decreases in a warming climate, contributing to enhanced predictability. On the other hand, the influence of early summer thickness anomalies on summer melt out and resulting September ice area increases as the climate warms. Given this, for the same magnitude ice thickness forecast error in early summer, a larger September ice area anomaly results in the warming climate, contributing to reduced predictability. The net result of these competing factors is that a sweet spot for predictability exists when the ice thickness forecast error growth is modest and the influence of these errors on melt out is modest. This occurs at about 2010 in our simulations. The predictability of summer ice area is lower for earlier decades, because of higher ice thickness forecast error growth, and for later decades because of a stronger influence of ice thickness forecast errors on summer melt out.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7k93bn9

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

2019-08-01T00:00:00Z

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

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