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Influence of internal variability on Arctic sea-ice trends

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 86–89 (2015)Cite this article

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A Correction to this article was published on 21 May 2015

This article has been updated

Internal climate variability can mask or enhance human-induced sea-ice loss on timescales ranging from years to decades. It must be properly accounted for when considering observations, understanding projections and evaluating models.

The possibility that internal climate variability can produce decade-long periods in the twenty-first century featuring enhanced3 or negligible4 sea-ice loss is well documented in the scientific literature3,4,5. Broadly communicating this role of internal climate variability on sea-ice trends to society at large is key, as in the case of temperature and precipitation changes6,7,8. Yet the lack of a significant sea-ice trend since 2007 is causing some in the media to question the scientific understanding of climate change9, amplifying the scepticism which has garnered support due to the recent slowdown in global-mean surface temperature rise10.

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Figure 1: Arctic September sea-ice extent anomalies.
Figure 2: Arctic September sea-ice extent trends.
Figure 3: Probability of a pause in September Arctic sea-ice extent.
Figure 4: Cascade of uncertainty in CMIP5.

Change history

  • 16 April 2015

    In the Commentary ‘Influence of internal variability on Arctic sea-ice trends' (Nature Clim. Change 5, 86–89; 2015), in Fig. 3c, the x-axis label for pause length of 20 years was incorrectly repeated. Corrected after print 16 April 2015.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Nathan Gillett and Greg Flato for comments. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modelling groups for producing and making available the model output, listed in Supplementary Table 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment Canada, Victoria, V8W 2Y2, British Columbia, Canada

    Neil C. Swart & John C. Fyfe

  2. Department of Meteorology, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK

    Ed Hawkins

  3. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA

    Jennifer E. Kay

  4. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

    Alexandra Jahn

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  1. Neil C. Swart
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Correspondence to Neil C. Swart.

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Swart, N., Fyfe, J., Hawkins, E. et al. Influence of internal variability on Arctic sea-ice trends. Nature Clim Change 5, 86–89 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2483

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