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Climate variability

Natural causes of Arctic sea-ice loss

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 239–241 (2017)Cite this article

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Arctic sea-ice cover has declined precipitously in recent decades. Now research suggests that a sizeable fraction of this observed historical decline could have been caused by internal climate variability rather than by human-induced warming.

Several sharp plunges in Arctic sea-ice cover over the last decade have set record lows1, and led to dire predictions that an ice-free summer is imminent2. Climate models have, on average, shown a slower long-term rate of decline than observations and suggest that an ice-free Arctic should only be realized in the summers around mid-century3. Does this mean that climate models underestimate the Arctic response to human-induced warming, or could a portion of the observed Arctic sea-ice loss be explained by other factors? Writing in Nature Climate Change, Qinghua Ding and colleagues illustrate that around half of the observed summer-time Arctic sea-ice loss has been driven by naturally induced changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation4.

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Figure 1: September Arctic sea-ice extent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neil Swart is at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 2Y2, Canada,

    Neil Swart

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  1. Neil Swart
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Correspondence to Neil Swart.

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Swart, N. Natural causes of Arctic sea-ice loss. Nature Clim Change 7, 239–241 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3254

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