A Spring Barrier for Regional Predictions of Summer Arctic Sea Ice

Details

• Journal Title:
  Geophysical Research Letters
• Personal Author:
  Bonan, D. B. ; Bushuk, M. ; Winton, M.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) ; OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
• Description:
  Seasonal forecast systems can skillfully predict summer Arctic sea ice up to 4 months in advance. For some regions, however, there is a springtime predictability barrier that causes forecasts initialized prior to May to be less skillful. Since this barrier has only been documented in a few general circulation models (GCMs), we evaluate GCMs participating in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. We first show sea ice volume skillfully predicts summer sea ice area (SIA) and has similar skill to a perfect model experiment. Given this result, we assess regional SIA predictability across each GCM and find a universal predictability barrier in late spring. For SIA at each summer target month in the marginal seas of the Arctic basin, a notable drop in prediction skill occurs from June to May in each GCM. This suggests summer sea ice forecasts initialized after 1 June will have substantially better prediction skill than forecasts initialized before.
• Keywords:
  General Earth And Planetary Sciences Geophysics General Earth And Planetary Sciences General Earth And Planetary Sciences
• Source:
  Geophysical Research Letters, 46(11), 5937-5947
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1029/2019gl082947
• ISSN:
  0094-8276 ; 1944-8007
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Rights Information:
  Other
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0fefbb12784902393a721a124cdf7002459ab1c6562b8151346b98c9f42243ac11435f9cc1b0a1c70a6a9c720a23c72befa0458027c7741ee546efba51379164
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/63937/noaa_63937_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.16 MB ]