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While the Northern Hemisphere sea-ice has uniformly declined over the past several decades, the observed sea-ice in the Southern Hemisphere has exhibited regions of increase and decrease. Here we use a comprehensive set of ocean-sea-ice simulations (1990-2007) to elucidate the drivers of the observed heterogeneous sea-ice trends. We show wind variability is an important determinant of the heterogeneous pattern of the variability and trends in Southern Hemisphere sea-ice. Only in the West Pacific region does Southern Annular Mode wind forcing contribute significantly to the trend in sea-ice duration. El Niño Southern Oscillation wind forcing contribution to the sea-ice duration trend is confined to the Atlantic and Pacific. In the Indian Ocean, weather is a significant driver of the sea-ice duration trend. Only in the East Pacific region is wind forcing alone insufficient to give rise to the observed sea-ice decline and must be augmented by warming to reproduce the observations.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	El Nino-Southern Oscillation, heterogeneity, Northern Hemisphere, sea ice, Southern Hemisphere, warming, wind forcing
Research Division:	Earth Sciences
Research Group:	Climate change science
Research Field:	Climate change processes
Objective Division:	Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards
Objective Group:	Understanding climate change
Objective Field:	Effects of climate change on Antarctic and sub-Antarctic environments (excl. social impacts)
UTAS Author:	Matear, RJ (Dr Richard Matear)
UTAS Author:	O'Kane, TJ (Dr Terry O'Kane)
ID Code:	118776
Year Published:	2015
Web of Science® Times Cited:	32
Deposited By:	Zoology
Deposited On:	2017-07-19
Last Modified:	2017-08-09
Downloads:	145 View Download Statistics