Towards prediction of environmental Arctic change

Our main objective is to use models of the coupled ice-ocean Arctic environment to understand the past and present sea ice and ocean states and to predict future scenarios of environmental change in the Arctic Ocean. To meet this objective we have developed a coupled ice-ocean model of the sea ice covered northern hemisphere at 9-km and 45-level grid. The model has been spun up for 48 years. Three 24-year experiments have been completed following the spinup, all forced with realistic 1979-2002 ECMWF data but with a different surface temperature and salinity restoring times. Results from these integrations are compared to each other and to sea ice data available over this period to address the growing need for understanding the recent warming and the subsequent decrease of the Arctic ice pack during the late 1990s and 2000s.