Oh good grief I hear you cry, not more science. Yes. Sorry. And its even about sea ice, but the Antarctic kind. This is in the trail of Holland and Kwok and so on.
Observations reveal an increase of Antarctic sea ice over the past three decades, yet global climate models tend to simulate a sea ice decrease for that period. Here we combine observations with model experiments (MPI-ESM) to investigate causes for this discrepancy and for the observed sea ice increase. Based on observations and atmospheric reanalysis, we show that on multidecadal time scales Antarctic sea ice changes are linked to intensified meridional winds that are caused by a zonally asymmetric lowering of the high-latitude surface pressure. In our simulations, this surface pressure lowering is a response to a combination of anthropogenic stratospheric ozone depletion and greenhouse gas increase. Combining these two lines of argument, we infer a possible anthropogenic influence on the observed sea ice changes. However, similar to other models, MPI-ESM simulates a surface-pressure response that is rather zonally symmetric, which explains why the simulated sea ice response differs from observations.
So, maybe the GCMs wind-pattern response, aka MSLP, around Antarctica is a bit off?
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1BrAhkY
Oh good grief I hear you cry, not more science. Yes. Sorry. And its even about sea ice, but the Antarctic kind. This is in the trail of Holland and Kwok and so on.
Observations reveal an increase of Antarctic sea ice over the past three decades, yet global climate models tend to simulate a sea ice decrease for that period. Here we combine observations with model experiments (MPI-ESM) to investigate causes for this discrepancy and for the observed sea ice increase. Based on observations and atmospheric reanalysis, we show that on multidecadal time scales Antarctic sea ice changes are linked to intensified meridional winds that are caused by a zonally asymmetric lowering of the high-latitude surface pressure. In our simulations, this surface pressure lowering is a response to a combination of anthropogenic stratospheric ozone depletion and greenhouse gas increase. Combining these two lines of argument, we infer a possible anthropogenic influence on the observed sea ice changes. However, similar to other models, MPI-ESM simulates a surface-pressure response that is rather zonally symmetric, which explains why the simulated sea ice response differs from observations.
So, maybe the GCMs wind-pattern response, aka MSLP, around Antarctica is a bit off?
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1BrAhkY
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