85th AMS Annual Meeting

Thursday, 13 January 2005: 4:30 PM
Sea ice forced climate change in a GCM
C. M. Bitz, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; and A. Hall, M. M. Holland, and R. W. Lindsay
Feedbacks associated with sea ice are the chief cause of the poleward amplification of temperature change in climate models. Sea ice changes influence temperature, precipitation, and atmospheric and oceanic circulation. Results are presented from an experiment where the sea ice albedo feedback is surpressed in a climate model that is then subject to twice present day carbon dioxide levels. An additional experiment where the sea ice albedo is reduced by 15% gives results that are similar to those estimated from isolating the effect of ice albedo feedback in a global warming scenario. We compare and contrast the climate change associated with sea ice-albedo feedback and artifically lowering the sea ice albedo.

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