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Updated: May 7, 2025

Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
Northern Hemisphere sea ice variability in a transient CGCM simulation of the past 2.6 Ma
Gagan Mandal1, Soon-Il An2,3,4, Jae-Heung Park5
1Irreversible Climate Change Research Center, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Abstract:
The recent sea ice changes in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), necessitate elucidating the sea ice variability over the past 2.6 million years (Ma), when the Earth's glacial cycles transitioned from ∼41 to ∼100 kyr periodicity, following the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT) period (0.7-1.2 Ma). Here, we analyze a coupled general circulation model (CGCM) simulation to understand how the NH sea ice responds to changes in the transient orbital, greenhouse gas (GHG), and ice-sheet forcings. We find that the Earth's axial tilt (obliquity) and axial wobble (precession) strongly influence the variability in high-latitude (>70° N) perennial sea ice and mid-latitude (35° N-70° N) seasonal sea ice, respectively, by modifying the net surface shortwave radiation. Meanwhile, the GHG forcing affects the glacial-interglacial sea ice predominantly in the Labrador Sea, Irminger-Iceland basin sector, and Central North Pacific regions during the MPT and post-MPT (0.0-0.7 Ma) periods by modulating the downwelling longwave radiation. Additionally, we confirm that variability with longer periodicity (∼100 kyr) from GHG and ice-sheet forcings is most pronounced in NH sea ice during the MPT and post-MPT periods.
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