<strong>Patterns of atmospheric moisture transport linked to Southern Ocean Sea ice coverage changes</strong>

Abstract

and Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas. For most of these seas it was identified positive trends of E-P>0 anomalies, while negative trends were identified only for the SAUS moisture source to Amundsen and Bellingshausen Sea. In terms of SIC, for the whole Antarctic the total anomalies are increasing, but no breaking points in this time serie were detected. Preliminary results also indicate some areas, which do not coincide exactly with the limit of the regional seas, where the increase of Sea Ice Extension (SIE) is statistically significant.

Moisture transport and Antarctic sea ice: austral spring 2016 event

“…By using observational and reanalysis data alone it is difficult to disentangle which of the potential drivers (e.g., IWV and T2m) has a stronger impact on the sea ice variability. For the Arctic region, previous studies (Mortin et al, 2016;Kapsch et al, 2013;Park et al, 2015) suggested that the transport of heat and moisture into the Arctic during spring enhances the incoming surface longwave radiation, thereby controlling the initiation of the annual ice melt and setting the stage for the Arctic September ice minimum. Thus, our study can be used as an indicator that moisture transport should be considered in future studies as a potential driver of the Antarctic sea ice variability.…”

“…Turner et al (2017) considered the spatial differences of the SIE anomalies and their temporal change at a regional level. They related the low SIE over the Antarctic region to the warm air advection and the strong negative values of the SAM in November andDecember 2016. Schlosser et al (2018) have shown that the rapid decrease in the sea ice area and extent were associated with atmospheric flow patterns reminiscent of a positive ZW3 index.…”

“…Therefore, atmospheric moisture transport is a crucial component for the water balance, especially over the polar regions. While for the Arctic regions there are a large number of studies dealing with the influence of the moisture transport on the sea ice variability (Mortin et al, 2016;Yang and Magnusdottir, 2017;Park et al, 2015), over the Antarctic region little attention has been paid to transport variations in moisture from the extratropics (Nieto et al, 2017). As such, the objectives of our paper are as follows: (a) to characterize the temporal and spatial extent of the spring 2016 exceptional sea ice melting event using both daily and monthly sea ice data; (b) to analyze the key drivers of the event, with a special emphasis on the role played by enhanced moisture transport and warm intrusions into the Antarctic region; (c) to place the austral spring 2016 into a long-term perspective.…”