Antarctic Glacial Melt as a Driver of Recent Southern Ocean Climate Trends
Name
AntarcticGlacial.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
7.19 MB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Rye, Craig D
Marshall, John
Kelley, Maxwell
Russell, Gary
Nazarenko, Larissa S
Kostov, Yavor
Schmidt, Gavin A
Hansen, James
Date Issued
2020
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Recent trends in Southern Ocean (SO) climate—of surface cooling, freshening, and sea ice expansion—are not captured in historical climate simulations. Here we demonstrate that the addition of a plausible increase in Antarctic meltwater to a coupled climate model can produce a closer match to a wide range of climate trends. We use an ensemble of simulations of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Earth system model to compute “climate response functions” (CRFs) for the addition of meltwater. These imply a cooling and freshening of the SO, an expansion of sea ice, and an increase in steric height, all consistent with observations since 1992. The CRF framework allows one to compare the efficacy of Antarctic meltwater as a driver of SO climate trends, relative to greenhouse gas and surface wind forcing. The meltwater CRFs presented here strongly suggest that interactive Antarctic ice melt should be included in climate models.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL086892
