Seasonal heat and freshwater cycles in the Arctic Ocean in CMIP5 coupled models

This study examines the processes governing the seasonal response of the Arctic Ocean and sea ice to surface forcings as they appear in historical simulations of 14 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 coupled climate models. In both models and observations, the seasonal heat budget is dominated by a local balance between net surface heating and storage in the heat content of the ocean and in melting/freezing of sea ice. Observations suggest ocean heat storage is more important than sea ice melt, while in most of these models, sea ice melt dominates. Seasonal horizontal heat flux divergence driven by the seasonal cycle of volume transport is only important locally. In models and observations, the dominant terms in the basin-average seasonal freshwater budget are the storages of freshwater between the ocean and sea ice, and the exchange between the two. The largest external source term is continental discharge in early summer, which is an order of magnitude smaller. The appearance of sea ice (extent and volume) and also ocean stratification in both the heat and freshwater budgets provides two links between the budgets and provides two mechanisms for feedback. One consequence of such an interaction is the fact that models with strong/weak seasonal surface heating also have strong/weak seasonal haline and temperature stratification.