Abstract
The shrinking Arctic sea-ice area (SIA) in recent decades is a striking manifestation of the ongoing climate change. Variations of the Arctic sea ice have been continuously observed by satellites since 1979, relatively well monitored since the 1950s, but are highly uncertain in the earlier period due to a lack of observations. Several reconstructions of the historical gridded sea-ice concentration (SIC) data were recently presented based on synthesized regional sea-ice observations or by applying a hybrid model–empirical approach. Here, we present an SIC reconstruction for the period 1901–2019 based on established co-variability between SIC and surface air temperature, sea surface temperature, and sea level pressure patterns. The reconstructed sea-ice data for March and September are compared to the frequently used HadISST1.1 and SIBT1850 datasets. Our reconstruction shows a large decrease in SIA from the 1920 to 1940 concurrent with the Early 20th Century Warming event in the Arctic. Such a negative SIA anomaly is absent in HadISST1.1 data. The amplitude of the SIA anomaly reaches about 0.8 mln km2 in March and 1.5 mln km2 in September. The anomaly is about three times stronger than that in the SIBT1850 dataset. The larger decrease in SIA in September is largely due to the stronger SIC reduction in the western sector of the Arctic Ocean in the 70°–80°N latitudinal zone. Our reconstruction provides gridded monthly data that can be used as boundary conditions for atmospheric reanalyses and model experiments to study the Arctic climate for the first half of the 20th century.
摘要
近几十年来北极海冰面积的缩小是气候持续变化的显著表现。自1979年以来, 卫星持续观测北极海冰的变化, 数据较为可靠; 相较而言, 自20世纪50年代更早期的海冰由于观测数据较少, 具有很大的不确定性, 其质量不如卫星观测数据。最近, 基于综合的区域海冰观测或应用混合模型-经验方法, 多项研究重建了历史的海冰密集度格点数据。本研究根据海冰密集度与表面气温、海表温度和海平面气压模态建立的协同变化关系, 重建了1901年至 2019年期间的海冰密集度数据; 并将重建的3月和9月海冰数据与常用的 HadISST1.1 和 SIBT1850 数据集进行比较。结果显示, 本文重建的北极海冰在1920 年到 1940 年间呈现显著的减少; 该现象与20世纪初发生的北极增暖事件吻合。该时段海冰面积减少的现象在HadISST1.1 数据中并不存在。在我们重建的数据中, 该时期3月份海冰面积异常幅度达约80万平方公里, 9月份则达到约150万平方公里。该异常幅度比 SIBT1850 数据中的异常幅度强约三倍。 9月份SIA减少幅度较大, 主要是由于北冰洋西段70° ̶ 80°N纬度区域海冰密集度下降幅度较大。本文重建提供了月平均的北极海冰格点数据, 可用作大气再分析和数值试验的边界场, 以更好地研究 20 世纪上半叶的北极气候
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Data availability. The IAPICE1 dataset is available at http://www.ifaran.ru/DATA/IAPICE1/, https://doi.org/10.11582/2024.00112, and https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.iap.00005.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the Editor for their valuable comments. The study was partly supported by the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Agreement No. 075-15-2021-577) and the Russian Science Foundation (Grant No. 23-47-00104). F. L. was funded by the Research Council of Norway (Grant No. Combined 328935). NK acknowledges the support of the Bjerknes Climate Prediction Unit with funding from the Trond Mohn Foundation (Grant No. BFS2018TMT01). LW acknowledges the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42261134532).
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Article Highlights
• A new gridded Arctic sea-ice reconstruction for 1901–2019 using co-variability between sea ice and hydrometeorological data is presented.
• The new reconstruction shows a large negative sea-ice anomaly in the middle of the 20th century comparable to the modern decline.
• The new reconstruction can be used as boundary conditions for atmospheric reanalyses and models for the first half of the 20th century.
This paper is a contribution to the special topic on Ocean, Sea Ice and Northern Hemisphere Climate: In Remembrance of Professor Yongqi GAO’s Key Contributions.
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Semenov, V.A., Aldonina, T.A., Li, F. et al. Arctic Sea Ice Variations in the First Half of the 20th Century: A New Reconstruction Based on Hydrometeorological Data. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 41, 1483–1495 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-024-3320-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-024-3320-x