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The term hockey stick graph was popularized by the climatologist Jerry Mahlman, to describe the pattern shown by the Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 (MBH99) reconstruction, envisaging a graph that is relatively flat with a downward trend to 1900 as forming an ice hockey stick's "shaft" followed by a sharp, steady increase corresponding to the ...
Sea ice in the Arctic region has declined in recent decades in area and volume due to climate change. It has been melting more in summer than it refreezes in winter. Global warming, caused by greenhouse gas forcing is responsible for the decline in Arctic sea ice. The decline of sea ice in the Arctic has been accelerating during the early ...
As the difference in albedo between ice and e.g. ocean is around 2/3, this means that due to a 1 °C rise, the albedo will drop by 2%*2/3 = 4/3%. However this will mainly happen in northern and southern latitudes, around 60 degrees off the equator, and so the effective area is actually 2% * cos(60 o ) = 1%, and the global albedo drop would be 2/3%.
Finally, (coupled) atmosphere–ocean–sea ice global climate models discretise and solve the full equations for mass and energy transfer and radiant exchange. Box models treat flows across and within ocean basins. Other submodels can be interlinked, such as land use, allowing researchers to predict the interaction between climate and ecosystems.
The greenhouse effect on Earth is defined as: "The infrared radiative effect of all infrared absorbing constituents in the atmosphere.Greenhouse gases (GHGs), clouds, and some aerosols absorb terrestrial radiation emitted by the Earth's surface and elsewhere in the atmosphere."
To analyze the feedback between ocean and atmosphere we need ocean model, which can initiate and amplify climate change on many different time scales, for instance, the interannual variability of El Niño [13] and the potential modification of the major patterns for oceanic heat transport as a result of increasing greenhouse gases. [14]
Radiative forcing is defined in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report as follows: "The change in the net, downward minus upward, radiative flux (expressed in W/m 2) due to a change in an external driver of climate change, such as a change in the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2), the concentration of volcanic aerosols or the output of the Sun." [3]: 2245
Sea ice reflects 50% to 70% of incoming sunlight, while the ocean, being darker, reflects only 6%. As an area of sea ice melts and exposes more ocean, more heat is absorbed by the ocean, raising temperatures that melt still more ice. This is a positive feedback process. (from Causes of climate change)