Atmospheric Warming Drives Growth in Arctic Sea Ice: A Key Role for Snow.

ABSTRACT: A number of feedbacks regulate the response of Arctic sea ice to local atmospheric warming. Using a realistic coupled ocean-sea ice model and its adjoint, we isolate a mechanism by which significant ice growth at the end of the melt season may occur as a lagged response to Arctic atmospheric warming. A series of perturbation simulations informed by adjoint model-derived sensitivity patterns reveal the enhanced ice growth to be accompanied by a reduction of snow thickness on the ice pack. Detailed analysis of ocean-ice-snow heat budgets confirms the essential role of the reduced snow thickness for persistence and delayed overshoot of ice growth. The underlying mechanism is a snow-melt-conductivity feedback, wherein atmosphere-driven snow melt leads to a larger conductive ocean heat loss thr

SUBMITTER: Bigdeli A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7685162 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature