Record-low Antarctic sea ice in 2023 increased ocean heat loss and storms

Josey, Simon A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1683-8831; Meijers, Andrew J. S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3876-7736; Blaker, Adam T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5454-0131; Grist, Jeremy P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1068-9211; Mecking, Jenny ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1834-1845; Ayres, Holly C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0294-7620. 2024 Record-low Antarctic sea ice in 2023 increased ocean heat loss and storms. Nature, 636 (8043). 635-639. 10.1038/s41586-024-08368-y

Before downloading, please read NORA policies.

Preview

Text (Open Access)
Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
s41586-024-08368-y.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Download (8MB) | Preview

Official URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08368-y

Abstract/Summary

Recent Antarctic sea-ice decline is a substantial source of concern, notably the record low in 2023 (ref. 1 ). Progress has been made towards establishing the causes of ice loss 1–5 but uncertainty remains about its consequences for ocean–atmosphere interaction. Resolution of this uncertainty is important as ice decline can substantially alter surface heat loss and thus the ocean and atmosphere 6 . Here we show that the strongest winter 2023 ice-retraction regions provide an important new source of turbulent ocean heat loss to the atmosphere in wintertime. Ice concentration in these regions (located primarily in the Weddell, Bellingshausen and Ross seas) is reduced by up to 80% and is accompanied by an unprecedented doubling of mid-winter ocean heat loss. Also, there is a phase shift in the time of peak heat loss from late April to mid-June, with weaker than normal heat loss in austral autumn. The winter surface-heat-loss intensification is accompanied by substantial changes on both sides of the ocean–atmosphere interface. These include increases in atmospheric-storm frequency and surface-heat-loss-driven dense water formation, although the implications of the densification for broader processes such as Antarctic bottom water formation remain unclear. Our results reveal that the 2023 Antarctic sea-ice loss has substantially modified air–sea interaction in the Southern Ocean and motivate in-depth analysis of the wider climate-system impacts.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1038/s41586-024-08368-y
ISSN:	0028-0836
Date made live:	20 Dec 2024 10:26 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/538586

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1038/s41586-024-08368-y

ISSN:

0028-0836

Date made live:

20 Dec 2024 10:26 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/538586