中科院大气物理研究所大气科学和地球流体力学数值模拟实验室刘骥平和宋米荣在《美国科学院院刊》(PNAS)发表了《减小气候模式预测北极九月无海冰出现时间的不确定性》文章,并被Nature作为研究亮点进行报道。
这项研究对最新获得的30个CMIP5气候和地球系统模式的模拟预测进行了分析,采用了2种不同的方法来减小预测北极九月未来出现无海冰状况时间的不确定性。一种方法是从30个模式中选择能最好地模拟1979年以来观测的北极海冰气候平均态和变化趋势。另一种方法是利用现在和未来模拟的北极海冰状态密切和持续的统计关系以及最近几年北极海冰的变化来约束模式海冰模拟的误差。这2种不同的方法给出了相似的北极出现无海冰的时间。
其结果是: 在高排放情景下(RCP8.5),北极9月出现无海冰的时间为2054到2058年之间。与之前众多模式的预测结果从2011到2098年相比,这项研究将北极无海冰时间大大地收窄到本世纪50年代中期。(生物谷Bioon.com)
生物谷推荐的英文摘要
Nature doi:10.1038/499383c
Ice-free Arctic predicted
High levels of greenhouse-gas emissions could drive the annual sea-ice minimum in the Arctic, which occurs in September, to a level defined as ice-free by around mid-century.
A team led by Jiping Liu of the State University of New York in Albany assessed recent projections from 30 climate models on the basis of how well they represent current sea-ice levels. The researchers also looked at the projections of those models that best represented the evolution of sea ice from 1979–2011. Both analyses suggest that, compared with 2012 levels, sea ice could decline by some 50% to around 1.7 million square kilometres by the 2060s if emissions are moderate. A high-emissions scenario could push the annual minimum to less than 1 million square kilometres — the ice-free level — in the 2050s.