Observational and modeling studies of the influence of sea ice anomalies on atmospheric circulation

The effects of sea ice on short-term climate variability are studied by comparing the speculated and model-derived climatic roles of sea ice with the observational evidence. It is concluded that sea ice variations have large local impacts on the lower atmosphere which can be useful in local forecasting at the 30-90 day range. Observational studies are found to be severely constrained by the fact that atmospheric forcing plays a major role in the development of sea ice anomalies. Global climate models exhibit significant sensitivities to large changes of sea ice coverage. While the responses of different models are similar in many respects, there are inconsistencies among the models in the changes of some fundamental variables.