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A survey of the atmospheric physical processes key to the onset of Arctic sea ice melt in spring

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Abstract

September sea ice concentration (SIC) is found to be most sensitive to the early melt onset over the East Siberian Sea and Laptev Sea (73°–84°N, 90°–155°) in the Arctic, a region defined here as the area of focus (AOF). The areal initial melt date for a given year is marked when sea ice melting extends beyond 10% of the AOF size. With this definition, four early melting years (1990, 2012, 2003, 1991) and four late melting years (1996, 1984, 1983, 1982) were selected. The impacts and feedbacks of atmospheric physical and dynamical variables on the Arctic SIC variations were investigated for the selected early and late melting years based on the NASA MERRA-2 reanalysis. The sea ice melting tends to happen in a shorter period of time with larger magnitude in late melting years, while the melting lasts longer and tends to be more temporally smooth in early melting years. The first major melting event in each year has been further investigated and compared. In the early melting years, the positive Arctic Oscillation (AO) phase is dominant during springtime, which is accompanied by intensified atmospheric transient eddy activities in the Arctic and enhanced moisture flux convergence in the AOF and consequently enhanced northward transport of moist and warm air. As a result, positive anomalies of air temperature, precipitable water vapor (PWV) and/or cloud fraction and cloud water path were found over the AOF, increasing downward longwave radiative flux at the surface. The associated warming effect further contributes to the initial melt of sea ice. In contrast, the late melt onset is usually linked to the negative AO phase in spring accompanied with negative anomalies of PWV and downward longwave flux at the surface. The increased downward shortwave radiation during middle to late June plays a more important role in triggering the melting, aided further by the stronger than normal cloud warming effects.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by NASA CERES project under Grant NNX17AC52G at the University of Arizona. Yi Deng is partly supported by the National Science Foundation Climate and Large-Scale Dynamics (CLD) program through grants AGS-1354402 and AGS-1445956. Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Passive Microwave Data, Version 1 is accessed from NASA DAAC at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at http://nsidc.org/data/docs/daac/nsidc0051_gsfc_seaice.gd.html#cavalieri_92. The Arctic sea ice melt data used comes from NASA Cryosphere Science Research Portal (https://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/csb/index.php?section=54). MERRA-2 reanalysis provides atmospheric properties in this study, which can be obtained from NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (https://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?page=1&keywords=MERRA-2). In addition, Arctic Oscillation (AO) index is obtained from NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information webpage (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/ao/). We would like to thank Thomas Galarneau for discussion and Timothy Logan for proofreading. Also, we appreciate two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, 1133 E. James Rogers Way, PO Box 210011, Tucson, AZ, 85721-0011, USA

    Yiyi Huang, Xiquan Dong & Baike Xi

  2. School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Yi Deng

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  1. Yiyi Huang
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Correspondence to Xiquan Dong.

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Huang, Y., Dong, X., Xi, B. et al. A survey of the atmospheric physical processes key to the onset of Arctic sea ice melt in spring. Clim Dyn 52, 4907–4922 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4422-x

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