Response to the autumn sea-ice free Arctic and its detectability

We have used an Atmospheric General Circulation Model with a large ensemble (300) to explore the atmospheric responses during the autumn–winter (September to February) to the projected sea-ice free Arctic in autumn (September to November). The detectability of the responses against the internal variability has also been studied. Three ensemble experiments have been performed, the control (CONT) forced by the simulated present-day Arctic sea-ice concentration (SIC) and sea surface temperature (SST), the second forced by the projected autumn Arctic SIC free and present-day SSTs (SENSICE) and the third forced by the projected autumn Arctic SIC free and projected SSTs (SENS). The results show that the disappearance of autumn Arctic sea-ice can cause significant synchronous near-surface warming and increased precipitation over the regions where the sea-ice is removed. The changes in autumn surface heat flux (sensible plus latent), surface air temperature (SAT) and precipitation averaged over the sea-ice reduction region between the SENS and the CONT are about 46, 43 and 50 % more respectively than the changes between the SENSICE and the CONT, which is consistent with the prescribed boundary setting: the surface temperature warming averaged over the sea-ice reduction region in the SENS relative to the CONT is 48 % higher than that in the SENSICE relative to the CONT. The response shows a significant negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) in the troposphere during autumn and December. However, the negative AO does not persist into January–February (JF). Instead, 500 hPa geopotential height (GH) response presents a wave train like pattern in JF which is related to the downstream propagation of the planetary wave perturbations during November–December. The SAT increases over northern Eurasia in JF in accordance with the atmosphere circulation changes. The comparison of the atmosphere response with the atmosphere internal variability (AIV) shows that the responses of SAT and precipitation in the Arctic far exceed the AIV in autumn and the response of the 500 hPa GH is comparable to the AIV in autumn, but none of the responses during JF exceeds the AIV.