Arctic Change Detection

Atmospheric Sciences-APL-PMEL

20th Century Zonal Mean Surface Air Temperature Anomalies (Nov. – Mar.)

Winter (Nov. – Mar. ) Land Surface Air Temperature averaged 60-90N

18 IPCC Models

Example of Successful Model Ensembles

-4 -2 0 2 4 deg C

Persistent Multivariate Arctic ChangesPersistent Multivariate Arctic Changes

Permafrost degradation

Sea Ice Sept 2003

AVHRR Surface Temperature

Tundra shown in

Pink

Arctic Oscillation (AO) Index

Thompson and Wallace, 1998 Geo. Res. Let.

Sea Ice work with Applied Physics Laboratory

OW 2 4 6 8 10+

Ice Age Sept 2000

Arctic Change in the last Decade March-May

Temps Heights

Thickness

500 hPaTemps

150 E

150 W

http://www.http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect

SUMMARY

JISAO collaboration on Arctic climate

Present Arctic conditions are unique in the instrumental record (1880 -2004). Over last five years many indicators show strong persistence.

Arctic change is a combination of 1) intrinsic atmospheric variability, 2) internal feedbacks and 3) external forcing in unknown amounts.

AOPNA

Projections of Spring Temperature on the AO and PNA

Recent Anomalies