Response of Northern Hemisphere Weather and Climate to Arctic Sea Ice Decline: Resolution Independence in Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project (PAMIP) Simulations

The impact of Arctic sea ice decline on the weather and climate in midlatitudes is still much debated, with observations suggesting a strong link and models a much weaker link. In this study, we use the atmospheric model OpenIFS in a set of model experiments following the protocol outlined in the Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project (PAMIP) to investigate whether the simulated atmospheric response to future changes in Arctic sea ice fundamentally depends on model resolution. More specifically, we increase the horizontal resolution of the model from 125 to 39 km with 91 vertical levels; in a second step, resolution is further increased to 16 km with 137 levels in the vertical. The model does produce a response to sea ice decline with a weaker midlatitude Atlantic jet and increased blocking in the high-latitude Atlantic, but no sensitivity to resolution can be detected with 100 members. Furthermore, we find that the ensemble convergence toward the mean is not impacted by the model resolutions considered here.