The Seasonality of Antarctic Sea Ice Trends

Abstract:

Unlike the strong decline in Arctic sea ice, Antarctic sea ice is experiencing a weak overall increase in area that is the residual of opposing regional trends. This study considers the seasonal pattern of these trends. In addition to traditional ice concentration and ice area, temporal rates of change of these quantities are investigated (“intensification” and “expansion,” respectively). This is crucial to the attribution of the Antarctic sea ice trends, since changes in wind or thermal forcing directly affect ice areal change, rather than ice area itself. The study shows that diverse regional trends all contribute significantly to the overall Antarctic sea-ice increase. In contrast to the widely-held view of a 'south Pacific dipole', trends in the Weddell and Amundsen-Bellingshausen regions are found to best compensate in magnitude and seasonality. Perhaps most importantly, the largest concentration trends, in autumn, are actually caused by intensification trends during spring. Autumn intensification trends directly oppose autumn concentration trends in most places, seemingly as a result of ice and ocean feedbacks. Further study of changes during the spring melting season is therefore required to unravel the Antarctic sea ice increase.