Impact of Decreasing Perennial Arctic Sea Ice Extent on Local and Remote Water Masses as Depicted by a 60-Year Forced Global Coupled 0.1° Ocean/Sea Ice Simulation

Abstract:

The global climate impact of decreasing perennial Arctic sea ice extent over the past decades remains unclear. To appreciate regional and remote effects due to this reduction, we present results from two forced global coupled ocean and sea ice simulations, run in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) framework, one for 1970-2009 and the other for 1948-2009. A strongly eddy-active (nominal 0.1°) configuration of the Parallel Ocean Program 2 and CICE2 were forced in CESM with Coordinated Ocean Reference Experiment 2 (CORE2) interannually varying atmospheric reanalysis surface fluxes. We compare climatologies and trends of simulated sea-ice quantities as consistently as possible with observations over the past decades. Results, among others, include comparisons of ice thickness from the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), ice concentration from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager, and ice drift statistics from the International Arctic Buoy Programme with quantities from the 40-year simulation. The observed decreasing trend of September sea ice extent is well represented by the model. Histograms of sea ice drift show that slow speeds are under-represented in the model relative to the observations. Using the 60-year simulation, we examine changes and variability through the decades between the 1970s and the 2000s in upper ocean stratification and water mass composition in the western Arctic. Our final objective is to understand how variation in the Arctic freshwater outflow modifies the water mass characteristics of the buoyancy-driven East Greenland Current (EGC) and in turn, how this water mass variation modifies mixing over the East Greenland shelf/slope between Irminger Sea and EGC waters.