Abstract
The spatial structure of the Arctic sea ice concentration (SIC) variability and the connection to atmospheric as well as radiative forcing during winter and summer for the 1979–2017 period are investigated. The interannual variability with different spatial characteristics of SIC in summer and winter is extracted using the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. The present study confirms that the atmospheric circulation has a strong influence on the SIC through both dynamic and thermodynamic processes, as the heat flux anomalies in summer are radiatively forced while those in winter contain both radiative and “circulation-induced” components. Thus, atmospheric fluctuations have an explicit and extensive influence to the SIC through complex mechanisms during both seasons. Moreover, analysis of a variety of atmospheric variables indicates that the primary mechanism about specific regional SIC patterns in Arctic marginal seas are different with special characteristics.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the following organizations for providing the data used in this study. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) provided the satellite-derived ice motion and concentration data, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) provided the reanalysis product and the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) provided various climate variables.
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The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41406215 and 41706194; a fund provided by the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology; the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers under contract No. U1606401.
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Liang, Y., Bi, H., Wang, Y. et al. Role of atmospheric factors in forcing Arctic sea ice variability. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 39, 60–72 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-020-1629-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-020-1629-6