Recent advances in understanding the Arctic climate system state and  change from a sea ice perspective: a review

Döscher, R.; Vihma, T.; Maksimovich, E.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-13571-2014

Articles | Volume 14, issue 24

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-13571-2014

© Author(s) 2014. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Ice-Atmosphere-Ocean interactions in the Arctic Ocean during...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-13571-2014

© Author(s) 2014. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 24

Review article

|

19 Dec 2014

Review article |

| 19 Dec 2014

Recent advances in understanding the Arctic climate system state and change from a sea ice perspective: a review

R. Döscher, T. Vihma, and E. Maksimovich

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Final revised paper (published on 19 Dec 2014)
Preprint (discussion started on 30 Apr 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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SC C2319: 'Atmopsheric processes and feedbacks', Felix Pithan, 12 May 2014
- AC C6627: 'Response to Referee #3 (F. Pithan)', Ralf Döscher, 06 Sep 2014
RC C2595: 'Langauage needs improvement', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 May 2014
- AC C6625: 'Response to Referee #2', Ralf Döscher, 06 Sep 2014
RC C4095: 'review comments and suggestions', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Jun 2014
- AC C6626: 'Response to Referee #1', Ralf Döscher, 06 Sep 2014

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Ralf Döscher on behalf of the Authors (06 Sep 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Sep 2014) by Klaus Dethloff

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (01 Oct 2014)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of the manuscript, entitled “Recent Advances in understanding the Arctic Climate System State and Change from a Sea Ice Perspective: a Review” by R. Döscher, T. Vihma, and E. Maksimovich

I appreciate the authors’ efforts to address my comments and suggestions and to revise the manuscript. The revised manuscript has been improved on various aspects, e.g., by including earlier studies about lower latitude warm water inflow and shifting cyclones, clarifying water vapor changes and associated feedback, and providing new paragraphs of discussions and evaluations. There is no doubt I support publication of this manuscript though some weaknesses still exist, for example, the paper is still lengthy, which may prevent busy audience from reading it.

However, I would like to draw the authors’ attention and make corresponding revisions on the following key issues, which have caused confusions, in particular in young students and researchers. These issues have been discussed recently in different occasions and workshops. As a review paper, the confusing discussions about these issues may further propagation of misunderstanding or misleading.

-->1. AO and NAO: The new discussion in Section 4.1 gives an impression that the positive polarity of NAO is due to its space shifting in 1980. This is not the case. It is the phase transition that played a fundamental role in sea ice decrease. The NAO or AO went to a positive phase from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, increasing heat transport into the Eurasian land and then the Arctic Ocean to cause sea ice decrease. NAO space shift only made an additional contribution to the role of the NAO or AO phase transition.

--><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:#00000A;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"2. Transpolar drift stream and sea ice export: In climatology, the transpolar drift stream is a pathway of sea ice moving to Fram Strait and exports from the Arctic Ocean. The transpolar drift stream is mainly formed by the climatological Beaufort high, and its location and intensity are largely determined by the position and strength of the Beaufort high. When AO goes to a positive phase, the Beaufort high weakens. The increase in sea ice export via Fram Strait and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago is mainly due to an accumulation of sea ice on the western Arctic and an increase in sea ice outflow from these passages, rather than simply via changes in the transpolar drift. X Zhang et al. (2003) has shown this in their modeling study.

--><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:#00000A;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"3. Second or third EOF mode: The atmospheric dynamics is generally considered as a nonlinear system. But it should not be so chaotic that, for a particular time period, its variability can be indeterminately represented by either second EOF mode or third EOF mode. Unlike AO or NAO that has the exact same expression for a long time period, the second mode or the third mode considerably changes with adding more data to the analysis sample. Also, as the authors stated, the second or third EOF mode varies with the selected analysis domain. They are therefore not robust modes representing intrinsic atmospheric variability, perhaps just a mathematic result. Discussions about physical expression of EOF can be found in North et al. (1982). So, overstatement of these modes would cause a big misleading as a review paper. Because the authors have stated these weaknesses and uncertainties of the second or third mode, it is inconsistent to continually suggest that “studies on future transformation … (such as AO, DA, …) will be essential for understanding …”. Finally, to my knowledge, I haven’t seen any studies that find transformation between these modes.

--><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:#00000A;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"4. Sea ice export and 2007 summer low ice extent: It is well accepted that sea ice export via Fram Strait contributed to multiyear sea ice loss in the 1990s due to positive AO. However, since the mid 1990s, the sea ice export has greatly decreased though the sea ice export was slightly higher in 2007 than in 2000-2005. Summer sea ice export is only one seventh of the winter export, suggesting its contribution can be neglected in causing the great sea ice loss in 2007 summer.

--><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:#00000A;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"5. In line 515, the authors describes “… Zhang et al. (2008) suggested a decreasing control of AO and NAO on the Arctic sea ice cover”. But the cited paper by Zhang et al. (2008) in the reference list is a case study about the 2007 summer sea ice, not about impacts of AO and NAO.

--><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:#00000A;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"6. The following citation is duplicated in the reference list:

Screen, J. A., & Simmonds, I. (2010). The central role of …
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ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (01 Oct 2014) by Klaus Dethloff

AR by Ralf Döscher on behalf of the Authors (10 Oct 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (10 Nov 2014) by Klaus Dethloff

AR by Ralf Döscher on behalf of the Authors (10 Nov 2014)

Short summary

The article reviews progress in understanding of the Arctic sea ice decline. Processes are revisited from an atmospheric, ocean and sea ice perspective. There is strong evidence for decisive atmospheric drivers of sea ice change. Large-scale ocean influences on the Arctic Ocean hydrology and circulation are highly evident. Ocean heat fluxes are clearly impacting the ice margins. Little indication exists for a direct decisive influence of the warming ocean on the central Arctic sea ice cover.