Alexander, M.A., et al., 2004: The atmospheric response to realistic Arctic
sea ice anomalies in an AGCM during winter.
Sea ice anomalies at the springtime maximum probably have more to do with what is happening to weather over subarctic seas rather than what is happening to preconditioning of sea ice in the Arctic Basin proper.
But a look at the plotted
sea ice anomaly data we see that sea ice has in fact stabilized over the past 11 years.
«Our future studies will look to compare the role of the AMO compared to Arctic
sea ice anomalies, which have also been shown to affect atmospheric circulation patterns and promote colder, more extreme winters.»
Some processes arise through interactions with other parts of the climate system such as the ocean (for example as manifested through sea surface temperature anomalies),
sea ice anomalies, snow cover anomalies as well as through coupling to the circulation in the stratosphere.
Sea ice anomaly chart on Cryosphere Today seems to be stuck at the bottom -2.5 km2, which is quite expected given the roundness of the remaining pack.
Since we are particularly interested in understanding the mechanisms of troposphere - stratosphere interactions, we use a large perturbation (
sea ice anomaly) in our sensitivity experiments.
Today the Arctic
sea ice anomaly is some 742,000 square kilometers below the satellite mean.
The chart below is from the Cryosphere Today and shows
the sea ice anomaly for the short period of time (since 1979) we have been able to observe it by satellite.
Although I may get an answer to one of my earlier questions from the Polar Science Centre: Schweiger, A.J., J. Zhang, R.W. Lindsay and M. Steele,» Did unusually sunny skies help drive
the sea ice anomaly of 2007 ′, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol.