Arctic Climate Change. Glen Lesins Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science Dalhousie University Create Summer School, Alliston, July 2013

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1 Arctic Climate Change Glen Lesins Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science Dalhousie University Create Summer School, Alliston, July 2013

2 When was this published?

3

4 Observational Evidence for Arctic Amplification Arctic warming in 1930s Latitude Equator Recent warming is global with strong Arctic amplification Year ( ) GISS Surface Temperature Anomalies: Zonal Mean versus Time. (Note: using station data only 1200 km smoothing)

5 Warming from 1955 to 2009 Note the Arctic amplification when warming (from 1955 to 2009) is plotted as a function of latitude

6 Location of the radiosonde stations used in this study. 22 Canadian stations were used Triangle symbol denotes station near sea ice.

7 Trend in the annual mean surface air temperature averaged over 22 stations covering most of Canada. Individual Stations Surface Air Temperature Anomaly ( o C) Annual Average All Stations Global Warming Trend : 0.17 o C/decade Global Trend ( ) = 0.17 o C / decade (Amplification 4x) Global Trend ( ) = 0.21 o C / decade (Amplification 5x) WarmingTrend : 1.1 o C/decade WarmingTrend : 0.7 o C/decade Canadian Arctic Amplification is a factor of 5 for Year Lesins et al, 2012, J. Climate

8 No warming over the last 10 years Line plot of global mean land-ocean temperature index, 1880 to present, with the base period The dotted black line is the annual mean and the solid red line is the five-year mean. The green bars show uncertainty estimates. [This is an update of Fig. 1A in Hansen et al. (2006).]

9 Sea ice extent continues to decline rapidly. Even worse, sea ice is getting thinner.

10 Question How much of the Arctic warming can be attributed to an amplification of the global greenhouse gas radiative forcing? vs. How much can be attributed to inherent sensitivity in the Arctic to natural variability?

11 Radiative Forcing from Doubling CO 2 Radiative forcing is +4 W m -2 : Positive means warming Initial TOA balance Instantaneously double CO 2 Energy imbalance results in warming until a new balance is achieved Enhanced in the Arctic? Houghton, Fig 2.9

12 Amplification is greatest in the autumn and winter months more ice-free sea Annual warming trend For Eureka buffering by summer melt

13 Arctic Winter Energy Balance 160 W m -2 No sun Outgoing Long-Wave at Top of Atmosphere Atmospheric Meridional Heat and Moisture Flux Atmosphere 120 W m -2 Clouds (Optical Depth) Net Surface Heat Flux 30 W m -2 Infrared Down (Temp and Greenhouse Gases) Infrared Up (Skin Temp) Sensible and Latent Heat (Surface Winds) Heat Conduction & Freezing Sea Ice Aerosols Oceanic Meridional Heat Flux Ocean

14 Possible Feedback Explanations for Winter Arctic Amplification Ice/Snow Albedo - Temperature Feedback Cloud Feedback No direct influence since it is dark in the Arctic winter. Open question. Water Vapour Feedback No winter trend in precipitable water. Dynamical Feedback Yes, enhanced meridional energy transport. Thinning Sea Ice Feedback Yes, enhanced heat flux from ocean through the sea ice.

15 Seasonally Averaged Vertical Temperature Profiles at Eureka Strong winter inversion Spring Summer Autumn

16 Scatter plot of inversion strength with the time of year. Note the large variability in inversion strength.

17 Sounding plotted on a SkewT-LogP Diagram Strong surface based temperature inversion

18 INVERSION ENHANCEMENT OF AMPLIFICATION Strong temperature inversion inhibits vertical mixing. Hence an increase in the surface heating will not spread throughout the troposphere. This results in enhanced warming at the surface compared to more southerly latitudes.

19 Arctic Winter Surface Energy Balance Upward Longwave I = I + F + C u d Sensible Heat Conduction from Below Downward Longwave Longwave Down (I d ) Longwave Up (I u ) Air Sensible Heat (F) T = s Skin Temperature Id + F + C 4εσT 3 s Snow Ground T s Heat Conduction (C) Winter Amplification when: 1. More downward longwave. 2. Less upward sensible and latent heat flux. 3. More upward heat conduction. 4. Colder surface temperature.

20 1971 to to 2010 Surface Warming Trend ( o C/decade) Effect of Surface Inversion Strength Effect of Mean Surface Temperature Lesins et al., 2012: J. Climate

21 Similar result when plotting the monthly averages over all stations Surface Warming Trend ( o C/decade) Effect of Surface Inversion Strength Largest warming trends are associated with the strongest inversions and coldest temperatures Effect of Mean Surface Temperature

22 Much of Arctic Amplification is a consequence of a suppressed latent and sensible heat response due to the stable boundary layer. Change in surface radiative forcing ( R s ) caused by changes in temperature, greenhouse gases, clouds and/or aerosols The length of the bold black arrow ( I u ) gives the amount of surface warming Outside the Arctic (well-mixed PBL) Arctic Winter (very stable PBL) Arctic Summer (neutral to stable PBL) NOTE: The arrows sum vectorwise to zero for surface energy balance (reverse arrow below ground) ΔR s ΔF lh +ΔF sh ΔI u (ΔT s ) Ground or Ocean Change in Meridional Energy Transport to the Arctic ΔR s Sea Ice ΔI u (ΔT s ) Inversion Top ΔR s ΔI u (ΔT s ) ΔF lh +ΔF sh Sea Ice or Ocean ΔC (thinning sea ice) ΔF lh (melting sea ice) I = R + F + F + C u s sh lt

23

24 Heat Conduction Through the Sea Ice F conduction T 30 = λseaice Wm z 2 seaice -2 Thermal conductivity of sea ice

25 Latent Heat Released by Sea Ice Formation Assume the whole Arctic ocean grows a fixed amount of sea ice thickness during the winter. The latent heat is released at the bottom of the sea ice layer. F freeze = fl o fρi z t 6 months Wm -2 This value is consistent with the conductive flux upward through the sea ice.

26 Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) Temporal variation in the average North Atlantic sea surface temperature. There is evidence of a correlation between the AMO and multidecadal temperature variations in the Arctic. The AMO index is defined as the SST anomaly for the basin-wide detreaded smoothed time series.

27 AMO Index Warm phase Cold phase Notice the roughly year period Warm phase is associated with more Atlantic hurricanes, more rain in Florida and more drought in the south-west USA

28 The Arctic temperature trend is amplified compared to the global trend Arctic annual average temperatures (37 stations poleward of 64 o N) Global annual average surface temperatures Note the different temperature scales Chylek et al., 2009

29 Compare the warming of to that of Amplification was even greater during (deg C per decade) Low Arctic High Arctic Chylek et al., 2009

30 There appears to be a strong AMO connection to the Arctic temperature trend. Will the Arctic begin to cool if the AMO shifts back to a cool phase? Chylek et al., 2009

31 Thank you

32

33 This typical model feedback analysis is not applicable to the Arctic winter Water Vapour T s = R n= 0 λ f i Water Vapour & Lapse Rate Cloud All Albedo Lapse Rate IPCC, WG3, 2007

34 Figure 1: Upper left: Five year moving average of the observed Arctic temperature (NASA GISTEMP) in red and regression reconstruction (in red) using known 20 th century forcings as predictors. Upper right: The residue (difference between the observed and reconstructed temperature (black) and AMO index (red). Both sets normalized to zero mean and unit variance. Lower left: Same as upper left, however, with the AGHG, volcanic aerosol, and AMO as predictors. Lower right: Contribution of individual predictors to the reconstructed Arctic temperature

35 High Arctic Eureka

36 Significant increases in precipitable water in all seasons except winter. Warming in winter is not a water vapour feedback. Lesins et al, 2009, Submitted to AO

37 Warming is greatest when the sun is low or absent. So ice albedo feedback is not the direct cause of the winter warming. Arctic warming occurs when the surface inversion is the strongest (from October to April).

38 Significant increases in precipitable water in all seasons except winter. So the warming in winter is not a water vapour feedback. Lesins et al, 2010, AO

39 Mean spring ice thickness for (a) , (b) , (c) , (d) (e) thickness minus thickness. (f) thickness minus thickness. The area of ice exceeding 5 years in age decreased by 56% between 1982 and 2007 [Maslanik et al., 2007]. Within the central Arctic Ocean, the coverage of old ice over this period declined by 88% and ice that is at least 9 years old essentially disappeared. This change toward younger ice translates to a decrease in mean thickness of ice over the Arctic Ocean from 2.6 meters in March 1987 to 2.0 meters in 2007 Maslanik et al, 2007 Stroeve, et al., Eos, Vol. 89, No. 2, 8 January 2008

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