A sea ice free Arctic: Assessment Fast Track abrupt-127k experimental protocol and motivation [preprint]

Given that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer within the next ten to twenty years, accurately predicting low-ice states is of crucial importance. Paleo-evidence shows that the strong orbitally-induced high latitude insolation anomaly at 127,000 years ago (127 ky), of around +70 W m−2 in the Arctic during spring-summer, led to warm conditions and an Arctic that was occasionally or often ice-free during summer. Building on two Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIPs): the Sea-Ice Model Intercomparison Project and the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project, we propose an Assessment Fast Track experiment, abrupt-127k, focusing on this seasonally ice-free, or near ice-free, Arctic at 127 ky. The abrupt-127k experiment is initialised from a piControl simulation and abruptly imposes observed values for the insolation distribution and greenhouse gas forcing at 127 ky. It provides a new opportunity to evaluate models used to compute climate projections, both against paleo-evidence and each other, during a known low Arctic sea ice state. As CMIP models are not usually tuned to paleo observations, abrupt-127k represents a true ‘out-of-sample’ test. The abrupt-127k experiment has four key scientific objectives, to: ascertain the simulated Arctic sea ice state, including the presence and characteristics of last-ice areas; evaluate the simulated climates using Arctic paleo-evidence; characterise the central Arctic surface energy budget; and analyse the ice budget including ice melt, growth, and transport. We show that a large Arctic ice response will manifest within the first 30 years of the simulation, thus a single 100-year long run is sufficient for these objectives. Modelling groups are requested to follow standard CMIP output protocol for analysis, including the use of standard ‘fixed-length’ output. Given Fast Track abrupt- 127k is similar in setup to abrupt-2xCO2 and abrupt-4xCO2 experiments, combined analysis of these abrupt-experiments will facilitate understanding of the impacts of instantaneous radiative forcing in the Arctic.

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