A Multimodel Investigation of Atmospheric Mechanisms for Driving Arctic Amplification in Warmer Climates

When simulating past warm climates, such as the early Cretaceous and Paleogene periods, general circulation models (GCMs) underestimate the magnitude of warming in the Arctic. Additionally, model intercomparisons show a large spread in the magnitude of Arctic warming for these warmer-than-modern climates. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these disagreements, including the unrealistic representation of polar clouds or underestimated poleward heat transport in the models. This study provides an intercomparison of Arctic cloud and atmospheric heat transport (AHT) responses to strong imposed polar-amplified surface ocean warming across four atmosphere-only GCMs. All models simulate an increase in high clouds throughout the year; the resulting reduction in longwave radiation loss to space acts to support the imposed Arctic warming. The response of low- and midlevel clouds varies considerably across the models, with models responding differently to surface warming and sea ice removal. The AHT is consistently weaker in the imposed warming experiments due to a large reduction in dry static energy transport that offsets a smaller increase in latent heat transport, thereby opposing the imposed surface warming. Our idealized polar amplification experiments require very large increases in implied ocean heat transport (OHT) to maintain steady state. Increased CO2 or tropical temperatures that likely characterized past warm climates reduce the need for such large OHT increases.

Automated summary

When simulating past warm climates, GCMs often underestimate the warming in the Arctic, with a wide spread in the magnitude of Arctic warming between models. The disagreement may be explained by factors such as unrealistic polar cloud representation and underestimated poleward heat transport. The study focuses on intercomparing Arctic cloud and atmospheric heat transport responses to strong surface ocean warming in four GCMs, revealing differences in cloud responses and weaker AHT in warming experiments.