IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-29663-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heavy footprints of upper-ocean eddies on weakened Arctic sea ice in marginal ice zones

Author

Listed:
  • Georgy E. Manucharyan

    (University of Washington, School of Oceanography)

  • Andrew F. Thompson

    (Environmental Science and Engineering)

Abstract

Arctic sea ice extent continues to decline at an unprecedented rate that is commonly underestimated by climate projection models. This disagreement may imply biases in the representation of processes that bring heat to the sea ice in these models. Here we reveal interactions between ocean-ice heat fluxes, sea ice cover, and upper-ocean eddies that constitute a positive feedback missing in climate models. Using an eddy-resolving global ocean model, we demonstrate that ocean-ice heat fluxes are predominantly induced by localized and intermittent ocean eddies, filaments, and internal waves that episodically advect warm subsurface waters into the mixed layer where they are in direct contact with sea ice. The energetics of near-surface eddies interacting with sea ice are modulated by frictional dissipation in ice-ocean boundary layers, being dominant under consolidated winter ice but substantially reduced under low-concentrated weak sea ice in marginal ice zones. Our results indicate that Arctic sea ice loss will reduce upper-ocean dissipation, which will produce more energetic eddies and amplified ocean-ice heat exchange. We thus emphasize the need for sea ice-aware parameterizations of eddy-induced ice-ocean heat fluxes in climate models.

Suggested Citation

  • Georgy E. Manucharyan & Andrew F. Thompson, 2022. "Heavy footprints of upper-ocean eddies on weakened Arctic sea ice in marginal ice zones," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29663-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29663-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29663-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-29663-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jörn Callies & Raffaele Ferrari & Jody M. Klymak & Jonathan Gula, 2015. "Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, November.
    2. Thomas W. K. Armitage & Georgy E. Manucharyan & Alek A. Petty & Ron Kwok & Andrew F. Thompson, 2020. "Enhanced eddy activity in the Beaufort Gyre in response to sea ice loss," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-8, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qinwang Xing & Haiqing Yu & Hui Wang, 2024. "Global mapping and evolution of persistent fronts in Large Marine Ecosystems over the past 40 years," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bracco, Annalisa & Liu, Guangpeng & Sun, Daoxun, 2019. "Mesoscale-submesoscale interactions in the Gulf of Mexico: From oil dispersion to climate," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 63-72.
    2. Yusen Liu & Cheng Sun & Jianping Li & Fred Kucharski & Emanuele Lorenzo & Muhammad Adnan Abid & Xichen Li, 2023. "Decadal oscillation provides skillful multiyear predictions of Antarctic sea ice," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Qinwang Xing & Haiqing Yu & Hui Wang, 2024. "Global mapping and evolution of persistent fronts in Large Marine Ecosystems over the past 40 years," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29663-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.