The Seasonal and Regional Transition to an Ice‐Free Arctic

Årthun, Marius; Onarheim, Ingrid Husøy; Dörr, Jakob; Eldevik, Tor

doi:10.1029/2020gl090825

Cited by 73 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 44 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, this can largely be explained by internal variability for many models. This is similar to results for pan-Arctic sea ice extent and area 6,11,39 and regional monthly SIC 10 . Since there are no simulations for which the average or temperature sensitivity of openwater period falls within the uncertainty range for every region (Supplementary Fig.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…This is comparable to past work showing ice-free conditions (average SIC < 15%) for August-October in the central Arctic Ocean by the 2050s in the multi-model mean under SSP585 but stabilizing with no ice-free conditions before 2100 in SSP126 (ref. 10 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…R apid decline of Arctic sea ice extent in the late twentieth century was an early signal that anthropogenic climate change was not just a future likelihood but a present reality 1,2 . Exceptional decreases have continued in both sea ice extent 3,4 and thickness 5 , and model projections of the future suggest frequent ice-free Septembers with 2°C of warming from pre-industrial conditions [6][7][8] , or by the middle of the twenty-first century [9][10][11][12] . Ice-free Septembers are less likely but still possible even under a 1.5°C warming scenario 7,8,11 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Arctic open-water periods are projected to lengthen dramatically by 2100

Crawford

Stroeve

Smith

et al. 2021

Commun Earth Environ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The shrinking of Arctic-wide September sea ice extent is often cited as an indicator of modern climate change; however, the timing of seasonal sea ice retreat/advance and the length of the open-water period are often more relevant to stakeholders working at regional and local scales. Here we highlight changes in regional open-water periods at multiple warming thresholds. We show that, in the latest generation of models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), the open-water period lengthens by 63 days on average with 2 °C of global warming above the 1850-1900 average, and by over 90 days in several Arctic seas. Nearly the entire Arctic, including the Transpolar Sea Route, has at least 3 months of open water per year with 3.5 °C warming, and at least 6 months with 5 °C warming. Model bias compared to satellite data suggests that even such dramatic projections may be conservative.

show abstract

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Arctic open-water periods are projected to lengthen dramatically by 2100

Crawford

Stroeve

Smith

et al. 2021

Commun Earth Environ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…13 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models project that the Arctic will become practically free of sea ice in September before the year 2050 at future anthropogenic CO 2 emissions of less than 1000 GtCO 2 above that of 2019 in all future emission scenarios. [14][15][16][17] The opening of the routes will raise a number of issues in connection with regional climate, 18,19 and the Arctic region is one of the climate system's potential "tipping points." 20,21 In the Antarctic region, the SIE has behaved quite differently, exhibiting an overall increase up to 2014, and a rapid decline since then.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends and variability in polar sea ice, global atmospheric circulations, and baroclinicity

Simmonds

2021

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We analyze the polar sea ice distribution and the global sea level pressure (SLP) and baroclinicity distributions over the "satellite" period of 1979-2020. In the Arctic, there are statistically significant sea ice extent (SIE) decreases in all calendar months, and the annual mean has lost 2.22 million km 2 over the four decades. The Antarctic SIE, in marked contrast, increased up to 2014, then commenced a remarkable retreat (the annual mean ice extent decreased by 2.03 million km 2 in the 3 years to 2017), and subsequently increased to near its long-term average value in 2020. The shifts in seasonal-mean SLP patterns are consistent with a warming planet. At the synoptic scale, we diagnose the changes in the baroclinicity, the mechanism by which cyclones, fronts, and other weather systems are generated. Through a novel presentation, we give an overview of the relative roles of changes in the vertical shear and static stability in influencing the global trends in baroclinicity. In both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, baroclinicity is shown to have increased in each season (with the sole exception of the Arctic in summer). This increase, coupled with midlatitude decreases in baroclinicity, results in poleward shifts of the storm tracks.

show abstract

“…Indeed, in the adjacent Barents Sea, in absence of sea-ice export, the Atlantification of the foraminiferal community appears stronger (Ofstad et al, 2020), likely further enhanced by import of nutrients that promotes phytoplankton production (Lewis et al, 2020). This means that once the ice export in the Fram Strait ceases to be fuelled by the increasing Arctic sea ice reduction (Årthun et al, 2021;Guarino et al, 2020), the planktonic community will likely abruptly shift to a completely different state with more Atlantic and more non-sea-ice species, possibly impacting the carbon export of the region (Anglada-Ortiz et al, 2021). Observational data of sea-ice extent and future predictions plotted in Figure 1d show that, in the Fram Strait, the trend towards an increase in sea-ice export seems to have already reached its maximum.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decadal trend of plankton community change and habitat shoaling in the Arctic gateway recorded by planktonic foraminifera

Greco

Werner

Zamelczyk

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Fram Strait plays a crucial role in regulating the heat and sea-ice dynamics in the Arctic. In response to the ongoing global warming, the marine biota of this Arctic gateway is experiencing significant changes with increasing advection of Atlantic species. The footprint of this 'Atlantification' has been identified in isolated observations across the plankton community, but a systematic, multi-decadal perspective on how regional climate change facilitates the invasion of Atlantic species and affects the ecology of the resident species is lacking. Here we evaluate a series of 51 depth-resolved plankton profiles collected in the Fram Strait during seven surveys between 1985 and 2015, using planktonic foraminifera as a proxy for changes in both the pelagic community composition and species vertical habitat depth. The time series reveals a progressive shift towards more Atlantic species, occurring independently of changes in local environmental conditions. We conclude that this trend is reflecting higher production of the Atlantic species in the 'source' region, from where they are advected into the Fram Strait. At the same time, we observe that the ongoing extensive sea-ice export from the Arctic and associated cooling-induced decline in density and habitat shoaling of the subpolar Turborotalita quinqueloba, whereas the resident Neogloboquadrina pachyderma persists. As a result, the planktonic foraminiferal community and vertical structure in the Fram Strait shifts to a new state, driven by both remote forcing of the Atlantic invaders and local climatic changes acting on the resident species. The strong summer export of Arctic sea ice has so far buffered larger plankton transformation. We predict that if the sea-ice export will decrease, the Arctic gateway will experience rapid restructuring of the pelagic community, even in the absence of further warming. Such a large change in the gateway region will likely propagate into the Arctic proper.

show abstract

The Seasonal and Regional Transition to an Ice‐Free Arctic

Cited by 73 publications

References 44 publications

Arctic open-water periods are projected to lengthen dramatically by 2100

Arctic open-water periods are projected to lengthen dramatically by 2100

Trends and variability in polar sea ice, global atmospheric circulations, and baroclinicity

Decadal trend of plankton community change and habitat shoaling in the Arctic gateway recorded by planktonic foraminifera

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About