Past perspectives on the present era of abrupt Arctic climate change

Abrupt climate change is a striking feature of many climate records, particularly the warming events in Greenland ice cores. These abrupt and high-amplitude events were tightly coupled to rapid sea-ice retreat in the North Atlantic and Nordic Seas, and observational evidence shows they had global re...

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Published inNature climate change Vol. 10; no. 8; pp. 714 - 721
Main Authors Jansen, Eystein, Christensen, Jens Hesselbjerg, Dokken, Trond, Nisancioglu, Kerim H., Vinther, Bo M., Capron, Emilie, Guo, Chuncheng, Jensen, Mari F., Langen, Peter L., Pedersen, Rasmus A., Yang, Shuting, Bentsen, Mats, Kjær, Helle A., Sadatzki, Henrik, Sessford, Evangeline, Stendel, Martin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.08.2020
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
704/106/694
704/158/2445
Ablation
Arctic climate changes
Arctic climates
Arctic sea ice
Climate Change
Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts
Climate models
Context
Cores
Earth and Environmental Science
Environment
Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice
Ice
Ice cores
Palaeoclimate
Paleoclimate
Perspective
Sea ice
Trends
Arctic region
Greenland
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Summary:Abrupt climate change is a striking feature of many climate records, particularly the warming events in Greenland ice cores. These abrupt and high-amplitude events were tightly coupled to rapid sea-ice retreat in the North Atlantic and Nordic Seas, and observational evidence shows they had global repercussions. In the present-day Arctic, sea-ice loss is also key to ongoing warming. This Perspective uses observations and climate models to place contemporary Arctic change into the context of past abrupt Greenland warmings. We find that warming rates similar to or higher than modern trends have only occurred during past abrupt glacial episodes. We argue that the Arctic is currently experiencing an abrupt climate change event, and that climate models underestimate this ongoing warming. In recent decades, the Arctic has warmed at over twice the global rate. This Perspective places these trends into the context of abrupt Dansgaard–Oeschger warming events in the palaeoclimate record, arguing that the contemporary Arctic is undergoing comparably abrupt climate change.
ISSN:1758-678X
1758-6798
DOI:10.1038/s41558-020-0860-7