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A hindcast simulation of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice variability, 1955-2001
2003, Fichefet, T., Goosse, H., Morales Maqueda, M.A.
A hindcast simulation of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice variability during 1955-2001 has been performed with a global, coarse resolution ice-ocean model driven by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalysis daily surface air temperatures and winds. Both the mean state and variability of the ice packs over the satellite observing period are reasonably well reproduced by the model. Over the 47-year period, the simulated ice area (defined as the total ice-covered oceanic area) in each hemisphere experiences large decadal variability together with a decreasing trend of ∼1% per decade. In the Southern Hemisphere, this trend is mostly caused by an abrupt retreat of the ice cover during the second half of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. The modelled ice volume also exhibits pronounced decadal variability, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Besides these fluctuations, we detected a downward trend in Arctic ice volume of 1.8% per decade and an upward trend in Antarctic ice volume of 1.5% per decade. However, caution must be exercised when interpreting these trends because of the shortness of the simulation and the strong decadal variations. Furthermore, sensitivity experiments have revealed that the trend in Antarctic ice volume is model-dependent.
Historical and idealized climate model experiments: An intercomparison of Earth system models of intermediate complexity
2013, Eby, M., Weaver, A.J., Alexander, K., Zickfeld, K., Abe-Ouchi, A., Cimatoribus, A.A., Crespin, E., Drijfhout, S.S., Edwards, N.R., Eliseev, A.V., Feulner, G., Fichefet, T., Forest, C.E., Goosse, H., Holden, P.B., Joos, F., Kawamiya, M., Kicklighter, D., Kienert, H., Matsumoto, K., Mokhov, I.I., Monier, E., Olsen, S.M., Pedersen, J.O.P., Perrette, M., Philippon-Berthier, G., Ridgwell, A., Schlosser, A., Schneider von Deimling, T., Shaffer, G., Smith, R.S., Spahni, R., Sokolov, A.P., Steinacher, M., Tachiiri, K., Tokos, K., Yoshimori, M., Zeng, N., Zhao, F.
Both historical and idealized climate model experiments are performed with a variety of Earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs) as part of a community contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report. Historical simulations start at 850 CE and continue through to 2005. The standard simulations include changes in forcing from solar luminosity, Earth's orbital configuration, CO2, additional greenhouse gases, land use, and sulphate and volcanic aerosols. In spite of very different modelled pre-industrial global surface air temperatures, overall 20th century trends in surface air temperature and carbon uptake are reasonably well simulated when compared to observed trends. Land carbon fluxes show much more variation between models than ocean carbon fluxes, and recent land fluxes appear to be slightly underestimated. It is possible that recent modelled climate trends or climate–carbon feedbacks are overestimated resulting in too much land carbon loss or that carbon uptake due to CO2 and/or nitrogen fertilization is underestimated. Several one thousand year long, idealized, 2 × and 4 × CO2 experiments are used to quantify standard model characteristics, including transient and equilibrium climate sensitivities, and climate–carbon feedbacks. The values from EMICs generally fall within the range given by general circulation models. Seven additional historical simulations, each including a single specified forcing, are used to assess the contributions of different climate forcings to the overall climate and carbon cycle response. The response of surface air temperature is the linear sum of the individual forcings, while the carbon cycle response shows a non-linear interaction between land-use change and CO2 forcings for some models. Finally, the preindustrial portions of the last millennium simulations are used to assess historical model carbon-climate feedbacks. Given the specified forcing, there is a tendency for the EMICs to underestimate the drop in surface air temperature and CO2 between the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age estimated from palaeoclimate reconstructions. This in turn could be a result of unforced variability within the climate system, uncertainty in the reconstructions of temperature and CO2, errors in the reconstructions of forcing used to drive the models, or the incomplete representation of certain processes within the models. Given the forcing datasets used in this study, the models calculate significant land-use emissions over the pre-industrial period. This implies that land-use emissions might need to be taken into account, when making estimates of climate–carbon feedbacks from palaeoclimate reconstructions.