Opposing southern ocean climate patterns as revealed by trends in regional sea ice coverage

The 16.8 year sea ice record (November 1978 to August 1995) derived from satellite passive microwave data shows evidence of contrasting climate patterns in the Southern Ocean as indicated by persistent opposing trends in regional sea ice coverage. Southern Ocean regions adjoining the south Atlantic, south Indian and southwest Pacific Oceans show increasing trends in sea ice coverage, particularly during non-winter months, while regions adjoining the southeast Pacific Ocean show decreasing trends in sea ice coverage, particularly during summer months. The data are compiled from three successive passive microwave sensors from which two separate time-series are analyzed. The first includes the data originally released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) which have not been significantly adjusted to account for differences in the successive sensors, while the second includes data recently released by NSIDC which have been rigorously adjusted (Cavalieri et al., 1997) to account for differences between sensors. Although the significance of many of the increasing trends detected in the original time-series decrease in the reanalyzed time-series, the overall pattern of contrasting trends remains evident. These trends have important implications for the southern hemisphere heat budget and surface albedo as well as for marine ecosystems associated with various sea ice habitats. Other evidence of contrasting climate patterns with respect to southern hemisphere atmospheric circulation is explored. Due to the relatively short sea ice record, it still remains to be seen whether these trends are natural decadal variation or indicative of global climate change. However, the persistent opposition in Southern Ocean regional ice coverage is noteworthy and may well be studied using global circulation models in order to better define potential positive and negative feedbacks for global change scenarios.