Evolution of the Arctic Climate System Simulated by Pan-Arctic Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) as Sea Ice Changes

As part of the development of a Regional Arctic Climate System Model (RACM), we have been performing ensemble simulations on a pan-arctic domain using a version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model that has been optimized for polar regions. This version of WRF will be part of RACM, and simulations using this version of WRF as a stand-alone model will provide a baseline for assessing the behavior of RACM's fully coupled land–ocean–ice–atmosphere system. This presentation presents impacts of sea-ice changes on the land-atmosphere behavior simulated by WRF and on fluxes between the atmosphere and the underlying ocean/ice. The ensemble simulations help us distinguish impacts of sea-ice changes from those due to internal variability (noise). Part of our analysis describes simulated changes in features of the region's climate such as mean temperature, precipitation and circulation, including storm tracks and other synoptic weather patterns. In addition, we diagnose how these changes influence the frequency, intensity and duration of temperature and precipitation extremes.