Changes in sea ice concentration explain half of the winter warming of the Arctic surface

Huo, Yiling; Zhang, Rudong; Wang, Hailong; Sweeney, Aodhan; Fu, Qiang; Rasch, Philip J.; Zou, Yufei; Wang, Muyin; Ma, Weiming

doi:10.1038/s43247-025-02548-y

i

Changes in sea ice concentration explain half of the winter warming of the Arctic surface

2025
By Huo, Yiling ; Zhang, Rudong ; Wang, Hailong ; ...
Series: PMEL contribution no. 5722

Details

Journal Title:

Communications Earth & Environment
Personal Author:

Huo, Yiling ; Zhang, Rudong ; Wang, Hailong ; Sweeney, Aodhan ; Fu, Qiang ; Rasch, Philip J. ; Zou, Yufei ; Wang, Muyin ; Ma, Weiming
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; PMEL (Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory) ; CICOES (Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies)
Description:

Arctic winter warming is stronger than in summer, but its driving mechanisms remain debated, particularly the roles of local processes, like sea-ice loss, versus remote factors, like atmospheric heat transport. Here we introduce a novel decomposition framework that characterizes Arctic warming as a function of historical atmospheric circulation, sea ice concentration, and carbon dioxide changes using observational and reanalysis data. We show that sea ice changes explain about 55% of the winter Arctic near-surface temperature trend during 1959–2015, after removing the effects directly connected to atmospheric circulation. Dynamically induced warming accounts for about 20% at surface and up to 80% in mid-troposphere. The remaining ~25% is attributed to the increase in carbon dioxide, though it also indirectly affects sea-ice loss and circulation-related warming. These findings highlight the dominant role of sea ice loss and change in atmospheric dynamics in affecting the historical Arctic winter warming.
Source:

Communications Earth & Environment, 6(1)
Series:

PMEL contribution no. 5722
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02548-y
ISSN:

2662-4435
Format:

pdf
Publisher:

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA20OAR4320271
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Submitted
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha-512:3dc86f77516e2e763f9e14d6dfab75424919869759f49401a045b1ed71f4e1fb073138a14a8fb45202b4ded0981ef56d07cf1b91b8547fd2696839cf2d3cdbb3
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/72361/noaa_72361_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 1.77 MB ]

ON THIS PAGE

Details

The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners. As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.